


Here

by Mercury_1998



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Attempted Sexual Assault, F/M, Feels, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-09 07:20:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11664309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercury_1998/pseuds/Mercury_1998
Summary: Dora has spent the last year wandering a post-apocalyptic Virginia, all with a toddler in tow. Killing to defend herself and her own had become the bread and butter of the New World. Until killing pulls her into the awareness of a whole new type of threat. Can she live in the world he built? Or will she burn like everything else?





	1. Bring It On Home

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing that you recognise belongs to me. This is my first fic; please be gentle. No beta so all mistakes are my own, along with Dora, Deano and Samson.
> 
> Bring It On Home - Sam Cooke

_Laughter… Two girls walking ahead, looking back… smiles…_

 

_Blood everywhere…_

 

_A man and a woman…_

 

_Rows upon rows of cribs… a baby crying…_

 

_The taste of salt… a stretch of blue, white horses…_

 

_Endless droning, wire fencing… She spins, reaching out. Tremors._

_The baby. Where’s the baby? A man in a cowboy hat._

_Crying from inside the complex. Blood in her eyes._

_Where’s the baby?_

_Laughter, from the man. He’s closer._

 

_Laughter. A family... A campfire…_

 

_Flames licking up the building._

_Crying._

_Blood._

_Where’s the baby?_

_Everything red. Everything burning. Stillness._

_Shark eyes. Shark smile._

_Intense heat… blistering her on her face… wet and moist against her ear…_

 

_What?_

 

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know I was awake. Despite the truth of my dreams, it’s surprisingly easy to distinguish between them and reality.

I could never decide what was worse. The dreams: warped visions, horrifyingly real, but with brief moments of respite.  Memories from my life before like doping yourself up: beautiful, dizzying, and leaving you slightly nauseous. Then there’s waking up and knowing the horrors are still happening, and knowing that my life from Before, is forever out of grasp.

Light danced colours across the canvas of my eyelids. That same wet heat that surfaced me from my uneasy sleep licked across my face again.

“Gerroff,” I mumbled, blindly throwing out an arm.

A mumble was pressed into my stomach. Chastened, I opened my eyes and gently slipped from under the blankets, running my fingers through dark curls before they disappeared under the heap.

Samson pranced, tongue lolling, nails clicking against the old wooden floor. A wet muzzle nudged my hands.

I pull on my boots. “Alright boy, let’s get you your breakfast.”

It was a miracle really, finding this place. A shack, really. But these days you can’t ask for much more than four walls and a roof if that. If we hadn’t found it before winter really set in, I don’t know if we’d’ve made it this long. Snow in the Old World -at least where I came from- was rare, and when it did appear, a happiness, bringing games and joy. In the New World, it’s just another way to kill you.

I shaded my eyes as Samson dug into the can of out of date wet dog food I’d managed to lift on my last run to the nearby town. The trees blocked most of the morning sun but a few stray sunbeams illuminated the clearing. Another miracle. Isolation never used to be something I thought I’d be glad for but now it’s our best defence. Against walkers and other humans.

We’d almost missed it, stumbling blindly through the woods. Samson loping ahead, invariably returning to gently bite my hand and tow me in the right direction. I was little better than a pack animal- dumb with fear, wounded, and carrying precious cargo.

Samson found it. He took down the walker inside and nudged me, whining, until I went through the motions. It took me a week to snap out of it.

I’d have died within the first month without Samson.

I re-entered the shack, leaving Samson to his scouting. The blankets push back and under a mop of dark hair, a freckled forehead and sleepy brown eyes emerge. “Doraaa?”

“Here, Deano.”

I brushed through his hair in silence and decided this must be one of the good days since he let me with a fuss. Normally my shaking fingers try his toddler-sized patience. As a reward for his good behaviour, I hummed his favourite song through the remainder of our morning routine, smiling as he tried to sing the words, making up those he couldn’t remember, which turned out to be the majority. I could almost pretend my fingers were dancing along to the tune like they used to. The quiet serenity of mornings like these almost lets me pretend this was a memory from Before.

Only Before, I didn’t have Deano.

I pulled him to me then, holding him fiercely through my tremors, burying my face in his curls until he starts squirming. I loosened my grip, allowing him to turn in my arms to face me. A small hand reaches up to touch my cheek and I quickly leant into it. Brown eyes stare into brown in startlingly similar frowns. Sometimes he looked so much older than just barely 3 years old.

“Dora?”

When he first said my name, I was so shocked I dropped the water I was boiling at the time. I remember it every time I see the burns that wrap the top of my feet and ankles. I cried though I don’t know if it was from the pain or from something else. The realisation that in a different world, my name wouldn’t even register in his existence. There’d be a mama… The tremors grew.

“Dora?”

“Here, Deano.”

 

It was later in the day when the lull of ataraxis is broken. I was resetting the animal traps when a low bark signalled Samson’s return. My body went rigid. Ears pressed to his skull, teeth slightly bared, he pawed the ground three times.

Three men.

Within the perimeter.

Deano.

I ran back, barely registering Samson beside me as I scrambled through the underbrush. Thorns whipped red ribbons of blood from my arms. The shack back in sight. No men yet. The door still closed.

Deano started up from the teddy I gave him as I burst through the door. “Hide and seek. 10 seconds. Don’t come out until the word, yeah? No noise. No matter what you hear.”

I shut the door again, blood pumping. My body was still, ready.

 

 

You know you're sick with something when you begin to miss that feeling.

 

 

“There’s nothing here. What a fucking waste of time.”

“I’m telling you, those traps were fresh.”

“So?”

“So, someone had to fucking set them didn’t they, you cunt.”

“If we don’t come back with anything _again_ , Negan’s gonna be fucking pissed…”

Samson was gone again. Disappeared into the bush. I waited, pressed to the side of the shack, bowie knife gripped tight. Sam Cooke singing in my head on repeat from my song for Deano.

“Wait, I see something.”

_If you ever change your mind…_

Footsteps entered the clearing. Loud. Invasive.

_...about leaving, leaving me behind…_

“That’s something alright.”

“Guns up boys.” Guns. Fuck.

_Baby bring it to me, bring your sweet loving…_

I moved from my hiding spot. Three men. All armed.

They stared at me for a moment, perhaps shocked at my silence.

_Bring it on home to me_

The shortest recovered first. His bushy moustache twitched into what I assumed was a smirk. “We got ourselves a girly.”

I didn’t gratify him with a reply, hands relaxed by sides. Looking at the now, it was easy to see the squat one’s authority over the other two. One, tall and a lard-arse. He had a fucking cigar hanging from fat lips like he was fucking Winston Churchill or something. His eyes gleamed with undisguised lust. The other could only be described as weedy, so skinny he could break under a strong wind. He couldn’t be much older than sixteen. He twitched nervously under my blank stare.

“You alone here girly? Sure lookit dontcha, aye Mickey?”

‘Mickey’ throws down his cigar like it’s not the rare luxury item it has become in this world. “I reckon so, Jimmy.”

“You got any of the good stuff in there girly? We’ve been walking all afternoon and we’re mighty thirsty.” Squat Jimmy spread his palms, his gun back in its holster, a slimy grin splitting his red face in half. Mickey licked his lips.

Before they could come closer, I lunged. The weedy one dropped his gun, falling on his arse as Jimmy failed to dodge my slash, cutting across his cheek before he fell. Clearing the way for the fat fucker.

He was so dumbstruck by Samson jumping on his from behind, my knife was in and out of his skull in a matter of seconds. But his weight fell forwards. I rolled and turned. I started to charge towards Weedy before a hand buried itself in my hair, jerking me backwards. Nails scratched unforgiving at my scalp and I snarled, hands clawing backwards, knife stabbing blindly.

“That’s it bitch.” Jimmy spat, yowling as the knife caught his forearm. He tore it from my fingers, flinging it to the side and began dragging me backwards by my hair. I could feel clothes and skin tear against the rocks and branches underneath me. I thrashed wildly. Samson jumped and caught his arm in his teeth but was thrown against the wall of the shack. He struggled to rise. “Shaun! Keep watch for walkers. I’m teaching this cunt a lesson.”

He managed to slam the door to the shack open and I was pulled over the threshold, thrown onto the same mattress I had shared with Deano and Samson just that morning.

Deano.

_A baby crying…_

Blood dripped into my eyes. Jimmy loomed over me, sitting on my stomach.

_Can’t breathe._

He ground down, face pulling into an ugly, bloody grimace. “Im’ma fucking tear you in two, bitch. You’re gonna pay for killing Mickey.”

I tried to spit in his face and it hit, before dripping back onto mine, mixed with blood. He laughed in my face, blood and spittle flying, breath hot and putrid. One meaty hand brutally squeezed my breast and the other punched my face with such force my ears rang. Amidst it all, I felt my nose begin to bleed. Iron tasted tangy on my swollen tongue.

_A baby crying… heat… Shark eyes, shark smile…_

I stared ahead, blinking away blood and darkness. A bulge pressed into my stomach. Vomit rose up to the back of my mouth. _Shark smile…_

He was taking off his belt. Tying it around my wrists.

_Do something._

He wasn’t paying attention. Chin up. Fat cheek, fleshy in a slack drooling smirk.

_Shark…_

I lunged. Teeth clamped down. Warm, sweaty. Pulled. Screaming. Blood. He fell on top of me, grabbing at his face. I reached back with both hands and pulled the knife from my pillow. I shoved it through his eye.

 

 

 

I sobbed silently into the chest smothering me. Eventually, I managed to shove him off me. His pants fell down. I remembered my old biology lessons. Men can stay erect and even ejaculate in death. Semen covered his groin. I did vomit then. I tried to wipe my mouth only to remember his belt, weighing heavy and tight around my wrists. I looked down. Some of his gunk had gotten on my stomach. I vomited again.

 

 

I managed to release my hands eventually and wiped my face of a mixture of bodily fluids. I scrubbed at my stomach to no avail but I couldn’t bear having the weight of  _that_ on me for another second so I stripped to my bra. I pulled his dead weight outside. Samson sat, a bit bloody, but intact on top of what remained of Shaun. I dealt with the bodies.

We went back to the shack and I used my shirt to mop up what I could of the mess before that outside as well.

I stood there, swaying, in the middle of the ramshackle little house we’d made a home. I leaned on Samson as he licked the blood from my fingers.

“Deano. Bring it on home, baby.”

A second beat out before scrambling could be heard and the small figure of the only precious thing left in this world crawls out from under two loose floorboards and runs into my arms.

_You know I’ll always be your slave, till I’m buried in my grave._

“I’m here, baby.”

_Oh honey, bring it to me._

_Bring your sweet loving._

“I’m here.”

 

_Bring it on home to me._


	2. The End Of The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora & co. search for a new place to set up. A glimpse of a favourite. Tears are shed and brooding silences are had. You can guess by whom. And the man himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only lay claim to Dora + co.
> 
> The End Of The World - Skeeter Davis

 

Eventually, I pulled away, albeit reluctantly.

The dried blood around my mouth was beginning to itch.

“Come on, we have to go.”

Deano sat quietly on the mattress as I hurried to pack up all of our things. I was pulling on a clean shirt when a small voice piped up behind me, “Why do we have to go?”

I closed my eyes. _We’re not safe here._ But you can’t say that to a child. Even in this world. “We just do, Deano.”

“I don’t wanna.” I didn’t need to turn to know he was beginning to pout.

“Choose what toy you want to bring.”

Thumping footsteps began moving behind me. “I’m not going.”

I turned, eyes narrowed. We didn’t have time for this.“You are, and you are going to choose which toy you want me to pack, or I will do it for you.”

“No.” Lips trembled in a wobbly pout. Brown eyes grow glassy and freckled skin flushed a telltale, dangerous pink.

“Deano.” I set my teeth, face stern with a warning. He ran and I followed. Out of the shack, stopping as soon as set foot outside. I yanked him back in. He was limp in my arms.

I gritted my teeth as I knelt, forcing him to look at me. “You do not run from me, Deano. How can I look after you if you run away, huh? There could be walkers out there and I wouldn’t be fast enough.”

Fat tears began to flow. “I doon’t waannt to gooo!” he wailed, struggling and fighting. Frustrated, I lifted him up with one arm and set about finishing packing the remains of our food supplies into the backpack. “Too bad.”

I stuffed a rather beat up toy alien with a bulbous green forehead into the bag and slung it over my shoulders, sheathing my knife. “Now, are you going to walk or do I have to carry you.”

At that point, the wailing muted, and small arms tightened around my arm. I sighed and knelt down. “Hop on up then.”

 

The sullen silence lasted only as long as it took to for us to make it 20 metres out of the clearing. Little hands began to smooth down my hair as it curled under the humidity. I tilted my head back. “You alright up there?”

“Taller than you.”

My lips quirked. “You’ll have to watch out or a bird will try to make a nest in your hair.”

“Won’t!”

“It would. That mess on your head would make a lovely nest for a new momma bird.”

Silence reigned for a moment and I knew the question that would come before it had a chance to leave his mouth. My fingers twitched. It came out every once in awhile and god if it wan't painful every time.

“Are you my momma, Dora?”

There we go.

“No, Deano.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Deano.”

“Oh.”

I was, really, in every sense but one. I was raising him. My name was his first word, I’d helped him to crawl, and to learn to walk. The drawings he had proudly pinned to walls of the shack didn’t have a ‘mommy’ or a ‘daddy’ in them. Instead, they were dominated by a small black haired boy, a girl with a red Crayola hair, and a brown blur with four legs and a tail. I wouldn’t be able to give him the life I had Before, brief though it was, but I could and would keep him alive. As long as it was within my ability to do so. If that shit isn’t maternal, I don’t know what is.

“That shit doesn’t matter though, you know that.”

“‘Cuz you’re my Dora?”

“Because I’m your Dora, and you’re my Deano.”

“Hey, Dora?”

“Yeah, Deano?”

“You don’t really think I’ll get a nest in my hair?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

 

I’d never really been around little kids until I found Dean, at least, not for extended periods of time. I’d never really comprehended how many questions a three-year-old could really throw out when bored out of their mind.

“Hey, Dora?”

“Yeah, Deano?”

“Why are the leaves green, but the rest of the tree is brown?”

We’d been walking for hours now, and the canopy had stopped filtering light some time ago.

“Dora?”

“Yeah, Deano?”

“I’m cold.”

It’s strange how the sun seemed to suck all the warmth it radiated with it as it dipped below the horizon. Samson had been lagging for the last mile and I myself felt the terror from earlier weighing on my shoulders, twice as heavy as Deano. It was hard to gauge how far we'd walked with no noticeable change in scenery. No shelter in sight. Trees it was.

“Dora?”

We had settled in for the night, too dangerous to keep moving in the dark. It seemed to be a fear not quite so unreasonable these days.

I’d lashed us to the trunk of the tree, high enough we were out of sight from any passing below. Samson slept at the base, a sentry in the night. Deano was like a little hot water bottle inside our shared sleeping bag.

“Yeah, Deano?”

“I wanna go home.”

Funny how one word can mean vastly different things to different people. To Dean, it was the security of the shack, the ability to live, temporarily, without the fear of the outside. A bed, some toys, a constant food source.

Home for me was something much less tangible. Far beyond the sea. Two girls, smiling and laughing. A man and a woman. Salt in the air. White horses at my feet. My stomach began to ache. I imagined myself, there with them. Nothing changed. Who knew nostalgia could be so painful.

“Me too, Deano.”

 

We kept just behind the treeline. Enough visibility, but safe in continued obscurity.

We found a small creek and I refilled our water bottles to boil later.  I then set about carefully washing Deano, keeping an eye out for leeches. Another problem I had been unfamiliar with until a rather nasty scare with severe blood loss following an indulgent bathing session. I limited myself to my washing the blood from my hands, face and neck. Despite the thorough scrubbing that Deano too eagerly assisted with, I could still feel it between my teeth as we walked away.

 

We found our way back to the road.

 

A woman on a red horse rode past. We stopped for fear of alerting her but she didn’t see us amidst the bush. Her black skin gleamed in the sun, thick ropes of dark hair swaying with the motion of the horse. As she passed us in the other direction I saw, across her back, a sheathed katana. We moved on quickly after that.

 

Another night in a tree.

 

For the first time, in what felt likes decades, birds sang as we passed beneath them, morning dew still dripping from our hair. I tried to whistle along but I could never hold a tune like that, let alone keep the right note. Samson howled in response and all the birds flew from their nests. I tried to shush him until Deano burst into raucous giggles and tried to imitate him. I smiled and tickled trembling fingers against his toes until he almost squirmed right off my shoulders.

Then, five walkers came through the treeline. We ran in silence.

 

I was beginning to get really sick of trees.

 

The next morning we were at the edge of the suburbs. Deano refused my shoulders, insisting instead upon clinging to my front like a baby chimp. I allowed it despite the fierce aching of my back. Samson wagged his tail by my side.

“Can you sing a song, Dora?”

“We have to be quiet now, Deano.”

The street was quiet but that didn’t really mean anything. This wasn’t somewhere we could set up permanently- the chances of running across other people being too damn high- but it would work for a few nights. So we could pick up some more gear, maybe even a car.

“Come on, Samson. Let’s go.”

 

The main street was wide and lined on both sides by large grand white houses, each one a miniature mansion in its own right. Lawns were decorated by bushes and gardens of flowers that were only in a state of slight disarray considering they’d gone a year without proper attention. Surprisingly, we only came across two walkers- unusual for a town of this size. Samson took care of them. It had become rather apparent how life -and death- thrives without large numbers of humans starving it. Samson lifted his leg and pissed on a hydrangea.

I picked a ball up off an overgrown lawn and threw it for Samson. He gleefully chased it and even gave the ball to Deano a few times to throw.

In the end, we chose the smallest house, further back from the road. Less space to clear and keep a track of. The door was locked but a window was open. I rapped hard on the glass to draw out any walkers. When none emerged, I lifted through Samson first, then Deano, before climbing in myself.

 

The interior looked as remarkably untouched as the outside, a thick layer of dust covering everything from the couches to the bannisters. Another testament to the life that was lived, like Stonehenge or the painted caves in France. Maybe in a hundred years people will look at around this very house and wonder what fuck that big black rectangle is hooked up above the fireplace. No one who lived Before still alive to tell them what a fucking TV was. Just another bone in the dirt. Would anyone still be alive by that point? Or would it be just a world full of walkers?

 

The master bedroom upstairs was clean and provided a good view of the street below so we set up there. I was laying out the bedding when Deano wailed. I spun. He was sitting by the open bag holding the toy alien.

“Where’s Wolfie?” he howled. I tried to scramble over but my legs got caught in the sleeping bag and I fell. I landed on top of Samson who yelped and in his struggle to escape from under me, kicked me in the face and knocked Deano over. Deano started bawling, clutching his head. I crawled over and scooped him up into my lap, stroking his hair.

“Shhh, shh Deano. You’re fine, you’re not hurt. You’re safe.” I whispered urgently, trying to calm him.

“Where’s Wolfie?” He threw his arms about, catching me in the nose.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, desperate.

“My Wolfie.”The words were punctuated with broken, guttural sobs. “He’s *sob* not in the *sob* in the bag-”

 

Fuck.

 

The little fluffy toy wolf Deano had been carting around ever since that bloody deathtrap of a toy store. He called it Wolfie, and it was Samson’s little brother.

I reached for something, hands shaking heavily, anything to stop him crying. “Wolfie’s just… joined his own pack now, he-” Deano screamed.

“No, he *sob* didn’t! You left him!”

“It’s alright,” I grabbed the toy alien, “You’ve got this guy-”

He ripped the toy from my hands and threw it at poor Samson. “No! I want Wolfie! Go get Wolfie!”

This was getting out of control. By this point, I just wanted to sit down and cry too.

I lifted a struggling Deano and dumped him on the bed. “I asked you to choose which toy you wanted me to pack but you didn’t  so now you’re just gonna have to play with that or have no toys at all.”

“I _hate_ you.”

I steeled myself against the hurt those words inflicted. “Alright, you can go to bed if you’re going to be like that. I’m going out. Samson, guard.” And I walked out.

_He’s just a baby. He doesn’t mean it._

_I can’t do this._

 

I returned after a 15-minute sweep. In truth, I get anxious after 30 seconds away from Deano but it’s a punishment with a purpose. For both Deano and myself. He needed to know he can’t tantrum like that and get away with it and I needed to remind myself that I can’t walk out on him. Because without Deano… there’d be nothing. The sky wouldn’t be the sky and I’d walk only for my feet to sink into the earth, pulling me down into darkness. I rubbed my face tiredly.

 

No. I’d just turn into another New Worlder. Lusting, fearful, desperate and feral.

 

I slipped into the bedroom and a small body barreled into mine. I picked the boy up tenderly and he clung to me like a limpet. The bed sunk under our combined weight as I wiggled backwards until my back rested against the headboard. A wet face pressed into the crook of my neck and I stroked a hand down a trembling back.

“It’s alright Deano,” I whispered into his hair. “I’m here.”

 

 

 

I woke to the faint sound of engines. By the time I had packed our gear and Deano was just beginning to rub the sleep from his eyes, voices could be heard.

"So this bitch killed Jimmy, Mickey and Shaun?"

"And her mutt. Did you see those bite marks? Those weren't no walker."

We crept down the stairs. Samson prowled ahead, teeth bared in a silent growl. I clicked my tongue to stop him. There had been multiple engines. Too many for us to take.

"Alright, boys, standard sweep. But keep an eye out, this chick is tricky. And remember, Negan wants her alive."

We backed down the hall towards the kitchen. There had been a back door through there. I ushered Deano onto my back.

"How are we supposed to know it's the bitch that killed ours and not some broad?"

"Negan said she'd have a dog and a kid with her."

I imagined screaming. They knew about Deano. They were looking for him too.

My hand closed around the doorknob. I tried to open it but it was stuck. The glass pane rattled in its frame as I jerked it.

"Did you hear that?"

"Could just be a walker?"

"Could be nothing. Or it could be her."

I heard the front door open. I gritted my teeth and jerked the door harder. A louder rattle.

"That was something alright." Footsteps. My hand reached back for my knife.

Another engine. Something louder than the others. Some kind of heavy vehicle. The footsteps stopped.

"Is that Negan? What's he doing here?"

"Guess he wanted to meet the bitch who done in three of his, all nice and personal like."

The other man laughed. I gritted my teeth, beginning to feel the dark fingers of panic. There was a dog flap. A small hole. The footsteps started closer after some muffled shouting from outside. I gestured Samson through. Then, Deano. I tried to squeeze through but my shoulders stuck. Shit motherfucking shit. I wiggled. Nothing.

I wiggled. Nothing. Deano stared at me, eyes wide. "Go," I whispered frantically. "I'll catch up. Samson, guard, go to the marker." The dog whined but pulled the boy away by his shirt. I wiggled more fiercely. The glass rattled again.

"Whoa ho, little bitch got stuck in the cat flap, huh?"

Hands closed around my ankles. I kicked out. A muffled yelp.

"Fuck, I am going to enjoy watching Negan take a whack at you, sweetheart."

I was pulled suddenly and slipped from the doggie door, back into the kitchen. I was pulled up into the arms of a tall man. I headbutted him before he could incapacitate me. He let me go, hands flying up to his broken, bleeding nose. I staggered back into the other man but managed to duck under his arm, flinging out a fist and catching him on the temple. He dropped like a stone. I flew to the door yanking at it with all my strength. The glass shattered but it slammed open.

"The bitch! She's here! She's going out back!" The man with the broken nose yelled. But I was sprinting out across the garden. Men came running from the road but they were too slow. I leapt over an upside down deck chair, heading back into the treeline towards the marker I'd directed Samson and Deano towards. Shots flew over my head. My ears were ringing.

A bark. There was Samson, guarding Deano behind a tree. I didn't stop, scooping him up, Samson turning and following me. I could hear a voice yelling for the men to stop shooting. I kept running.

 

 

 

We only stopped moving when the moon was high in the sky and the stars had come out. It was foolish, but I was spooked. We were being hunted, and by men who had numbers, weapons and knowledge of the landscape over us. I tried to think out our next step. We needed a car. We needed to get out of the area and fast. Today was too close a call. My skin was stiller than it had been in months, but my heart stayed frantic, rabbit fast.

Deano behaved as I scoped out a hollow under a great oak. He curled up quietly on the sleeping bag after I gave him some tinned beans, Samson curling up around him. I sat in the mouth, staring out into the night until the adrenaline caught up with me and I succumbed to exhaustion.

 

 

Light penetrated my eyelids. A crunch of leaves. I snapped up, knife in hand, blocking Deano and Samson.

The man in front of me laughed and it was so loud the noise of the woods silenced at the sound like it was a gunshot. He looked like grease lightning, a baseball bat garnished with barbed wire hanging loosely from his fingers.

A wide smile pulled across the mouth. It was the smile of a shark but his eyes crinkled like it was genuine, though they shined dark.

"Honey, could you fucking help me out? I must be fucking lost?"


	3. Sympathy For The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora's new acquaintance is more than he seems and hides more than he shows. Identities are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely comments.
> 
> Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones

 

I bared my teeth at the man, brandishing the knife. It only made him grin wider.

“Back the fuck off, now.”

He threw up his hands comically, before swinging the bat over his shoulder.

“Hey now, you talk around your kid with that fucking mouth? Now, you wanna call off your bitch back there?” I could feel Samson’s breath against my ear, a growl rumbling in his chest.

“He’s a dude.” I stonewalled. What the fuck was I doing.

He seemed to be thinking the same thing, bewilderment evident on his face. A face that only seemed capable of performing warped, over-exaggerated caricatures of emotion. “The fuck?”

“The dog- he’s a boy- his name’s Samson…” I cut myself off. “Whatever, just back the fuck off if you want to live.”

“You’re breaking my fucking heart, sugar tits.” That stupid grin was back. “I just happened to see you two, all cute, curled up in there, like fucking Hansel and Gretel. I couldn’t help myself.”

He leaned back, pushing his hips out obscenely, looking so damn pleased with himself. I felt Deano stir behind me. I stiffened further when the man's eyes landed on him.

“Cute kid.” He said, casual in manner but eyes intent. “Is he yours?”

“Yeah. He is.” I growled. He rolled his eyes.

“Alright, whatever. I was only on my way to a town over the hill. Was fucking hoping you could point me on my way. I even took down a walker that was gunning for you while you were playing fucking sleeping lions.” He pointed with his bat to a dead walker that hadn’t been there last night. “But I get it, all for fucking one and all that.”

He turned and started to saunter away, looking too damn at ease for a world gone to shit. I struggled with myself briefly. He hadn’t killed us yet. He didn’t try to steal our shit. He even ganked a walker that would have gotten us killed. Could I let him walk into an ambush unprepared? I closed my eyes and sighed.

“Wait.”

This was going to be the worst fucking idea of my life.

He stopped and turned on his toes. His face peculiarly blank.

“There’s, ah, a group of men down in the town. Heavily armed. Not friendly. I’d avoid it.”

The man was still and his expression was so stern, almost forbidding, I tensed again. But then, like the flip of a switch somewhere tucked away behind those sharp brown eyes, he was laughing again.

“Aren’t you just the sweetest fucking thing.” He wiped a fake tear from his eye, swinging that bloody bat around like we were setting up a game of pinata. “Not wanting me to die and shit. You are _adorable_.”

I scowled, setting back on my haunches. I hadn't felt this condescended to since high school. This dude thought he was the fucking shit, didn’t he?

“You know what?” He scratched at his beard, a smirk pulling wide. “I reckon Old Testament’s a good way to go, eye for an eye and all that. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

I was lost. “What?”

He rolled his eyes. “You help me, I help you. So what,” he spread his palms with a winsome grin, “can I do you for?”

Ignoring the innuendo I forced myself to consider it. I didn’t do well in teams but we needed help. I knew my answer. “We need a car.”

A wild grin. “Let’s fucking hotwire some wheels then, sugar tits.”

 

 

 

He was walking slightly ahead of me and I took the opportunity to properly examine him. He was tall, a lot taller than me. It would be difficult to take him down in a fight. I wouldn’t be able to get close enough with my knife before he’d knock me right back down with that mean looking bat of his. When the wire caught the light I couldn’t decide whether that was rust or blood I was looking at.

He whistled cheerfully. Carelessly. Nope, definitely blood.

His hair was black, though greying. It was slicked back like a greaser. Who the hell prioritised product in the middle of the damn apocalypse. Despite it, he could only be in his mid to late 40s.

He wore his leather jacket like he was naked, moving fluidly, with the sinuous grace of a predator. A red bandana around his neck like he was some hipster chick. I idly pictured him with bright red lipstick smeared across his face. Definitely a player. It was kind of sexy. In an ‘I’ll lick you clean then bash your brains out’ kind of way. Not really what I go for in a man.

On his right hand, the one he seemed to favour judging by the bat swinging from it, he wore a leather glove, but the other hand he kept bare. Curious.

“You don’t talk much do you?”

I stared at his back. Much more satisfying to give no reply. He glanced back over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, huffing out a laugh.

“Kid,” Deano perked up in wary interest from my shoulders. The man had lost his shit when I’d lifted Deano onto my shoulders before we set out.

When he’d finished laughing he had joked up at Deano, “King of the fucking world, right kid?”

Deano had stared then much as he was staring now.

“Your momma talk much?”

“She ain’t my momma,” Deano replied with all the seriousness a two and a half-year-old could possess.

“No?” he sounded surprised, turning back to look at us. Samson growled as if warning him to keep his eyes forward. “Sister?”

I felt him wiggle as he shook his head. “I’m her Deano.”

He hummed like he knew what that meant. I scowled. “Her Deano, huh?”

Patronising asshole.

Another wiggle, slightly different. A nod. “And she’s my Dora.”

“Dor-a.” He drew the name out like it fucking meant something. I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not. As if knowing what I was thinking, he looked back, winked, and waggled his eyebrows. I rolled my eyes. Deano relaxed, curling up around my head, falling back into a doze.

A strangely easy silence fell back over us as we walked, the stranger at the point, myself behind and Samson guarding our rear, unwilling for some reason, to get close to the man. He growled at any movement towards myself or Deano. This seemed to amuse the man.

“Dogs never fucking liked me. Even Before. What can I say,” he winked again, “I like pussy.”

He was humming now, instead of whistling, and I felt my eyebrows raise at the tune. Every now and he’d sing what words he could remember under his breath, often severely edited with various curse words of increasing vulgarity.

“ _... pleased to fucking meet you… hope you guessed my name…”_

I snorted before I could stop myself. He twisted but kept walking backwards. His bat was back over his shoulder. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. I rolled my eyes.

“So your name’s Dora,” he began listing off on his fingers, “you’re a fucking mute, and you don’t like the Stones?”

“I spoke earlier didn’t I?” I retorted though the sarcasm felt strange on my tongue. Maybe I was out of practice. “And I do like the Stones. You were just butchering it.”

He winced dramatically, slapping a hand over his heart like I’d shot him, before spinning to face forward again. “You’re killing me, sugar tits.”

“Stop calling me that,” I snapped back, waving Samson back when he growled. “You know my name now so you might as well use it.”

“But what’s the fun in that?”

“What’s your name then?” I asked after a moment. “S’only fair.”

I could imagine the smirk on his face spreading. That was all silence meant with him. Time to match his face to his emotions. “Just call me Lucifer, sugar tits.”

What a dick.

 

 

 

“So where, exactly, are we headed?” I asked a while later. Sweat was beading at my hairline and dripping down my back. Deano’s pants were beginning to stick uncomfortably to the back of my neck in the heat. Deano himself now wore his little SpongeBob bucket hat I’d found a while back. I hated having to cart him around in this heat.

“A car yard, down the highway from the town. Should be able to find you an easy ride there.”

Our water bottles sloshed in my backpack, an uncomfortable reminder of the necessity of saving water, despite my growing thirst. I stared at the man’s leather jacket, trying to distract myself. Unlike me, he carried no backpack, no sign of any gear of any kind, nor food or water. Either he’d run into some real bad luck or he was dodgy as fuck. I was leaning towards the latter but he was helping us. At least for now. We could lose him easy. As soon as we got the car.

“How are you not suffering heat stroke right now?” I asked, incredulous.

“Now who’s Little Miss fucking Chatty?”

I rolled my eyes, something that seemed to be becoming a regular occurrence around this dude. But I was satisfied to note the perspiration on his face when he faced me briefly, and the darkened patches of sweat that made his shirt cling to his chest. Samson huffed beside me. I ruffled his fur. I looked down and realised my fingers were shaking again for the first time since I woke up. I grabbed Deano’s legs to hide it.

“How far are we?”

“Are we nearly there yet?” he said in a sarcastic, and in my opinion, poor mockery of my voice. "Just listen to Daddy, sugar tits."

Yep, definitely losing him at the first opportunity.

“Where's all your gear then?”

“Hmm?”

I asked again, “where's all your gear. You're all alone but you don't have any food or water.”

He replied mildly, still facing ahead, “Oh I had a group. Not long ago. Crossed paths with a herd. I got away, no one else did.”

“I'm… sorry?”

He shrugged, back still to me. “I didn't like ‘em much anyway.”

We fell back into our rhythm. Crunching away over the leaves and roots. A rustle in the bushes to the left. We both raised our weapons. He flicked some kind of hand signal my way. I rolled my eyes and stepped into place at his back. The bushes shook again. The man pulled his bat back over his shoulder, prepared to strike. Something burst from the bushes. He swung and missed. Samson pounced.

It was a squirrel.

I choked on a laugh, then I looked at his stupid face, and I just couldn’t help myself.

“It was a fucking squirrel,” I gasped through my tears. He scowled heavily and turned away. I had to brace myself against a tree. Deano pulled on my hair.

“A fucking squirrel,” I wheezed.

“Hurry the fuck up already.”

I laughed under my breath, letting Samson keep the rodent, as I jogged to catch up.

"So what about you then?"

"What about me?" I asked, humour failing slightly.

"Where's your group?"

His tone was disinterested.

"No group."

"Separated?"

"No. No group."

"So what?" It was strange, him being the incredulous one. "You've been on your own this whole fucking time?"

I shrugged. He whistled low. "Damn, you raised a baby in the motherfucking goddamn end of the world  _by_ _yourself_."

"That is so fucking badass."

I was starting to think I would never stop rolling my eyes at this man.

 

 

 

“Here we are.”

We were crouched behind a barbed wire fence looking over a dirty, great big parking lot full of cars of varying quality. I raised my brow.

“This is it? It doesn’t look like a car yard.”

He almost looked offended. “What the flying fuck were you expecting? A fucking Porsche?”

“Not this shit tip that's for sure.”

I struggled to decide what to do about Deano. We couldn’t separate. It was too open, too dangerous, and there would be too many obstacles between us. He would make slipping away from the man difficult though.

I would have to chance it.

We crept between the cars silently. The man pointed to a shed on the other side of the lot. “The keys to all the cars should be in there.”

Two walkers came from the side of a large van. The man swung his bat, splattering the side of the van with brain matter. Samson took care of the other.

They began to move more quickly, aware of the rising noise of groans coming from around them. They made it to the shed, taking down four more walkers as they went. Samson stood guard with myself, Deano clutched in my arms now, as the man searched inside.

“Dude,” I called out, warningly. Walkers were dotting up all over now, and I could see some coming from the motorway, drawn in by the sound.

“I’m fucking coming,” he called back, “Just gotta find the right fucking one.”

Five walkers were within ten metres. I dropped Deano in the doorway of the shed and turned to face them, unsheathing my bowie knife. I dropped two, pushing one down for Samson to get before turning to the last two. They had been joined by six more. Mouths gaped grotesquely and rotting arms reached out for a final embrace. As I backed away, the man burst out of the shed, keys held aloft. He scooped Deano up in one arm.

“Come on, we gotta get the fuck out of here.”

I ran after him, cursing myself for putting Deano down. I couldn’t ditch this guy while he had a hold on Deano. We sprinted to a four-wheel drive, temporarily clear of walkers, though they were closing in on us. The man unlocked the car with a press of a button before throwing them to me. I fumbled to catch them as he belted Deano into the backseat, letting Samson jump in over him. As he righted himself and shut the door I threw them back.

“What the fuck?!” he demanded.

I gestured helplessly into the car. “It’s manual.”

He growled as he pushed me through the driver’s door, over the gear stick into the passenger seat, following me in and slamming the door behind him. “Fucking kids, not knowing how to fucking drive.”

He started the car up, yelling out when it refused to start. “Come on you cocksucking piece of shit, start.”

Walkers hit the car, clawing at the windows. Deano started crying in the backseat.

“It’s alright baby,” I whispered, like a broken record, “I’m here, I’m here.”

The engine finally roared to life and the man hit the gas. We ploughed through walkers, straight into another car. The man threw out his arm to stop me from slamming my head on the dash. “Put your motherfucking seatbelt on.” He commanded through gritted teeth before slamming into reverse, knocking down as many walkers as he could like he was playing Road Rage.

“The gates blocked.” I gasped, turning in my seat to look at it. What looked like a mini head had accumulated at the entrance. No way we could get through that.

“There’s a reason they call these off-roaders, sugar tits.” He grinned at me dangerously, spinning the car towards the fence line.

“Shitshitshitshiiit,” I yelled as we drove straight through the fence. The stranger laughed uproariously as he swerved left and right.

“Now that," he turned to me, eyes glinting, “is what I call an exit.”

 

 

 

We got back onto the road after about 20 minutes, and we were still driving a couple of hours later, I guessed, from the dip of the sun. I had nodded off following the excitement when the man had started humming The Rolling Stones again, as had Deano from the looks of it. I cursed at myself for my stupidity. I looked through the window. Just a fuckton of trees. But different to what we had been travelling through earlier. I had no idea where we were, or how we had gotten there.

“Where are we?” I asked, trying to mask the anxiety in my voice.

The man ignored me, his face strikingly serious.

"Let us out," I demanded. He didn't even look at me, only reaching over to turn on the child-lock. I stared at him, gaping. I was so stupid...

"Let us out, now," I said slowly, turning to face him in my seat, one hand reaching back for my knife. "Or I will kill you."

He turned to look at me. "With what, exactly?"

My sheath was empty. I lunged. Something hit my temple. My world went black.

 

 

 

_The sound of crying seemed to lift above the unrelenting drone of the walkers. I turned and saw Samson disappear around a corner. I followed, not willing to get left behind by my only companion._

_"Samson?" I called, as quiet as I could manage. "Samson?"_

_A low bark, followed shortly by a whine. I quickened my pace. The gaps between the buildings were narrow, but thankfully, largely deserted. I hadn't seen another living person in three weeks. It had been a police officer. He'd helped me escape an overrun military-defended camp of civilians with my life. But he had lost his in the process. Samson had been his final gift. A police dog in training. A German shepherd with half of his tail missing shoved into my arms._

_"He answers to Samson," he had gasped, blood thick on his tongue. "He'll look after you."_

_The crying was getting louder and I began to wonder how something hadn’t already come by and silenced it yet. I turned the last corner._

_A baby basket, balanced precariously atop a wall, out of reach of walkers, sheltered from the elements._

_I climbed the dumpster next to the wall and lifted the basket down. A baby, crowned by thick black curls, blinked brown eyes too big for his soft little face. The redness induced by his tears began to fade. I lifted him carefully. His nappy squelched unpleasantly but he did not appear to have been left there too long. His parents couldn’t have been gone longer than a day. In the basket beneath him lay a pink post-it note._

_My name is Dean._

_I recently turned one year old._

_I am allergic to nuts._

_Please look after me._

_I looked back down at the baby and smiled. I pushed back his dark fringe._

_“Deano, huh?” He whimpered and I cooed, shushing him as I tucked him into my chest._

_“I’m here, Deano. S’okay…”_

 

 

 

He opened the door and got out of the car. “Get out.”

My world was still fuzzy, and my ears ringing slightly. I could make out his tall form through the glass though. We were in a clearing. The sun was setting. I wondered how long I'd been out for. I spun to look at Deano. Asleep: still, or again. Unharmed to look at.

Hesitantly, overtly aware of the knife not at my hip and the bat that never seemed to leave his hands, I followed him out of the car. Samson and Deano remained, one fast asleep, the other wary and alert.

“Have you guessed my name yet?” He turned to me, smirk on his face but his eyes dark. I could only stare. He hadn’t taken the keys out of the ignition.

“No? You know, I’m a bit fucking disappointed.” He swaggered slowly towards me. The bat swung like a pendulum. I imagined the sound vibrating through my skull. I lunged for the car door again. I was in and scrambling over the seats. I was yanked backwards by my belt and thrown on the ground. I heard Samson barking before the door was slammed shut, and the noise was muffled.

“That,” he grunted, one gloved and ungloved hand pulled me up again, dragging me a few yards from the car, “was a big fucking no-no.”

When I struggled, the bat was shoved in my face, the end directly between my eyes. I stopped.

“Good girl,” he crooned with a laugh. I glared up at him. “Now, kneel.” He held the bat level until I relented.

“You are doing fucking _perfect_ , sugar tits. Now please, let me introduce to you some of my friends.” He cupped a hand to his mouth leaning back on his heels, though his eyes stayed on mine. “Hide and Seek's over boys.”

Out of the treeline emerged over 30 men, all armed to the fucking teeth, all oozing the same dangerous arrogance their apparent leader did. Though none appeared to have his natural charisma.

“You’ve met a few of them.” He fucking winked at me, with a smirk. He pointed to two, one with a broken nose, the other with a nasty bruise on his temple who seemed to be leaning on the other, though they both shared dark glares. “They’re both Negan.”

He turned to point at a younger man who looked torn between tears and pulling his gun on me then and there, red-rimmed eyes unwavering from mine. “That, that is also Negan. You might remember killing his brother, about a week ago now. He was Negan, too.”

“And me.” My eyes were pulled back to him as he moved to loom over me. His grin was as wide and toothy as I imagined a wolf would be before it ripped your throat out.

“You can call me Negan. Pleased to fucking meet you.”


	4. Hotel California

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora makes a deal with the devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hotel California - The Eagles

 

My eyes felt like they refused to focus. This man, Negan, strutting in and out of my vision. My brain was slow; were they all Negan? I didn’t understand. He came in close then, crouching in front of me, rubbing at the smirk on his face. I spat at him. It landed short, in front of his boots. He stared down at it.

“That was fucking disgusting. Honestly, who fucking raised you.” He turned to look at the men surrounding us. “Kids these days, right?” A few laughed. The rest glared on, hungry.

“Look, you seem to be having a hard fucking time processing all this, so I’m gonna fucking spell it out for you.” He stood again, circling me.

“You killed my men. You killed Jimmy, and Mickey and Shaun and that is just so fucking not cool.” The smirk transformed into a glare. “Not cool.”

“And then! And then you attacked two more of my men when they tried to bring you back to me. Gave one of them a concussion. He’ll be out of business for a week and I’ll be another man down on our runs. All because of you.”

He spun then, poking me with the bat. “Now, for any other limpdick that would earn a quick trip to hell by way of my lovely girl here, Lucille. But because of your _charity_ earlier, trying to protect me from my own motherfucking people, I’ll give you a chance to persuade me otherwise.”

“And do not,” he barked, eyes flashing, “try to tell me it wasn’t you.”

I looked down at the ground I knelt on before meeting his eyes again. My lips tightened and I flattened my face into a frown. “I was protecting myself.”

“You’re gonna have to fucking elaborate that shit, little miss Dora.”

I glared ahead, trying to ignore his little production. “They came to our home. They threatened me. I killed the fat one. The leader, Jimmy, dragged me inside and tried to-” I dragged in a grating breath. “He tried to rape me so I killed him too. By the time I dragged his fat corpse outside Samson had finished with the kid.”

Negan was stood still for once, staring at me, maybe understanding the nature of my fat lip, and the faint bruising under my left eye. He looked furious, but not, I thought, at me. At least, not fully. “You better not be fucking making that shit up…”

“I’m not.” I snapped back. “I was protecting myself and my own.” I would kill them all again.But I didn’t say that.

“Negan,” a man from the back called. He was tall, lanky, with a handlebar moustache. “Jimmy had a chunk of flesh missing from his face.”

“You are goddamn motherfucking right.” Negan leaned in with a manic grimace of a smirk. “If you killed Jimmy, what the fuck did that? There weren't any walkers there chewing on them when we found them.”

“I did.” I avoided his eyes. I could imagine the taste of iron in my mouth.

No one spoke and I didn’t look up. The smooth polished head of Lucille lifted my chin. Negan’s face was expressionless. “You bit Jimmy’s face off?”

“I had to get him off me somehow.” I pulled up my sleeves to show him the fading purple around my wrists. My mouth twisted wryly, “My hands were tied.”

“We left because I figured there’d be people who’d look for them. Your men found us at the town. I knocked them down trying to escape. Then you found us.”

The headlights of the car illuminated the clearing and every line of Negan’s face as he rubbed at his beard. Every pair of eyes were on him, waiting for his decision. I realised idly, I might be about to die. The thought was vague, undefined in my head. I played with it a little bit, as I eyed the baseball bat. Hopefully, with the experience he undoubtedly possessed, he had managed to perfect his swing. I wanted a home run.

He was shaking his head. He lifted the bat, fixing his stance. Everyone leaned forward anxiously, desperate. Hopefully, he was going for the head. I didn’t really fancy being toyed with.

Quite unexpectedly, he laughed. He got right in my face as grinned at me with something a little like awe. “You are one badass motherfucker. Go on, say it.”

I glanced to the side. Everyone looked on like they were used to his madman antics. “Uh… you are one badass motherfucker?”

“Not me dummy.” He rolled his eyes like I was being unreasonably slow, seemingly forgetting he had just been about to beat me to death. “You. _You ripped off a dude’s fucking face with your teeth._ That is hardcore!”

He slapped his palms on his thighs. “You got rid of some dirtbag rapists for me. I appreciate that shit, ‘cause that is something we _do not_ condone, right boys?” A rumble of agreement. “And I fucking like you. This little adventure we had, was a sort of test. And you fucking passed. I swear, there’s something about you…” He snapped his fingers a few times. “Simon, what’s that guy from the comics I like?”

“Batman, Negan.” The man with the handlebar moustache.

“You’re motherfucking Batman. All righteous justice and shit. With that cute little accent. Simon, what day is it?”

He laughed. “Why the fuck do you even care?”

“Because I don’t get presents like this unless it's my birthday.” His face sobered slightly. “I have a fucking dilemma on my hands here, don’t I? On one hand, you’ve done me a fucking favour. But that doesn’t change the fact you’ve killed three of my men and put another out of commission for at least a week. You gotta pay for that shit.”

“So here’s what I’m proposing. It’s gonna take, let’s say three months, to train new guys to take their places. Meanwhile, I’m down three men. That’s three months of shit not coming in. You see where I’m going with this?”

I shook my head, confused, understanding only that my seemingly imminent death was no longer at hand. He sighed loudly, reaching down with his free hand and yanking me to my feet. I fell into him slightly and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I was pulled into a leather-clad chest. The lingering smell of sweat and cologne filled my nose. He pressed his forehead down to rest against my hair. Warm breath blew against my ear. I tried to flinch but was held firm.

“You’re gonna have to pay off that debt if you want to keep playing happy families with the kid and the mutt,” he murmured, “Three months worth of shit for three men. The car settles Clive’s concussion. You get a week to acquaint yourself with our little community. I’m a fucking generous guy. When the three months are up, providing you’ve settled the debt, you can leave. With the kid, and the dog.”

“Get me my shit, and we’re square, deal?” He held out his gloved hand to shake. I looked down at it, then up. He leaned back to meet my eyes with his. I looked over my shoulder at the car. Samson had his nose pressed to the glass, Deano next to him, a hand in his fur.

I had no choice. I grasped his hand. “Deal.”

“Alright then.” Negan’s smile was blindingly genuine as he clapped me on the back, contrasting with the glares of the three men I’d wronged. Everyone else appeared disinterested now the possibility of a good brain-bashing was off the table. “Boys, let’s pack up. I’m fucking starving.”

He shoved me cheerfully towards the car. The men around us blended back into the treeline and I wondered where they were disappearing to before headlights lit up the entire clearing, engines growling to life in unison. As he realised we were coming back, Deano scrambled back into the back seat. I made to join him but Negan halted me with a click of his tongue. “Ah ah. I want you up front with me, Batman.”

I reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat. Samson shoved between the two chairs to lick my face. I kissed him back before pushing him away gently. I was about to ask if I could please join Deano in the back when the kid climbed over where Samson had been to plop himself in my lap. I clung to him as fiercely as he did to me, pressing kisses into his hair. Over the top of his head, I saw Negan drop into the driver’s seat, watching us with an unreadable expression. He started the car and pulled away, and I heard him mutter under his breath, “Need to get a fucking car seat for the kid… fucking safety hazard.”

I cleared my throat and reached into my pocket, pulling out a chocolate bar I’d been saving for Deano. I held it out to Negan. He glanced at it but kept driving. I poked him with it. “A… thank you, I guess. For sparing my life. And saving Deano earlier.”

“What the fuck is a Twirl?”

“Chocolate,” I said defensively, feeling increasingly awkward. “You said you were hungry… American chocolate tastes like crap anyway. But if you don’t want it…”

“I never said that.” He snatched the bar out of my hands, ripping it open. He broke a small piece off and held it out to Deano, eyes still on the road. “You want some, kid?”

Suddenly shy, Deano hid his face in my neck. I smiled reluctantly and jostled him a little until he took it. “What do you say, Deano?”

“Thank you,” he whispered, pausing for a second, but taking that as permission to ask the question that must have been plaguing him. “Are you going to hurt Dora?”

“Nah, kid. You two are coming to stay with me at my place.”

_Don't ask him. Don't ask him. Don't-_

“... Are you my Daddy?”

I held my breath. Don't fucking do it-

“You fucking know it, kid. But just call me Negan.”

I glared out the window for the rest of the drive.

 

 

“Home sweet home.”

We passed through a chainlink fence with a number of walkers impaled on it as some sort of second line of defence. And it looked well defended. In the dark, I couldn’t see much, but there appeared to be some guard towers. A few men opened the gates to let the party drive in. Negan pulled to a stop. Deano was asleep in my arms.

I got out the car, carrying Deano and looked up at the building we were to live in for the next three months. It looked to have been some kind of factory. It was massive, making me wonder just how big this community was.

“Welcome back, Negan,” some called from the gates. He ignored them in favour of guiding me into the building.

“This is the Sanctuary,” he told me as we walked down a corridor, his right-hand man Simon behind us. Samson walked obediently at my heels. “You’ll have the grand tour tomorrow. Simon will find you a room. Kid friendly, alright.”

Simon nodded and gestured for me to follow him, away from Negan and up a flight of stairs. I looked back and saw his wink at me with a jaunty salute before we turned the corner. Simon seemed relatively happy to leave the chatting for a more appropriate time and I was happy to indulge him. After climbing two more flights of stairs and turning down a narrow corridor, we stopped at a door. Simon handed me a key.

“This place is yours for the next three months. You’re goddamn lucky, ‘cause the kid rooms have the best set up. Someone will be ‘round for you in the morning.”

And just like that, he left the three of us standing there in the middle of the corridor. Coughing slightly, I slid the key into the lock and opened the door. The room itself wasn’t particularly large though it contained all the amenities I might require. A double bed, a crib, a kitchenette and a door to what I assumed would be an en suite. I dumped our backpack on the floor.

There was a dresser next to the bed and I went over. I picked out a set of pyjamas for myself and a large t-shirt for Deano. I ushered a half asleep Deano into the bathroom and into the shower. After we had washed and dried we ignored the crib and curled up with Samson on the double bed.

 

 

I woke up sweating. I untangled myself from the pretzel we had made on the bed and left Samson and Deano to sleep. There was no window in the room but there was a clock and I decided to assume it was accurate. Eight o’clock. I had slept in.

I decided to take another shower. I stripped from the pyjamas and stepped into the hot water. _Ah._  I savoured the blissful feeling, simply standing there. Last night had been rushed. This was an indulgence. I washed through every strand of hair, pulling out clumps of dried mud and blood, unpicking knotted strands. There was a razor on the shelf and I laughed. Why not? I shaved my legs and scrubbed all over vigorously before I reluctantly turned off the water and stepped out. The air was saturated and the room foggy with steam. I wrapped a towel around me. I cleaned my teeth and then set about brushing my hair. When the mirror unfogged I saw myself properly for the first time in a year. My hair was longer, brushing my collar bone, the auburn colour dulled by the water. Everything else was much the same as it had been, which in a way felt strange. I thought I wouldn’t be able to recognise myself but there I was, same as ever, still soft and young enough to be mistaken for a teenager. I was tanner and thinner, in a more starved than athletic kind of way. A result of days spent under the sun, giving my shares to Deano and Samson. But that was it.

I opened the bathroom door to see Negan at the breakfast table with Deano, eating pancakes. “Slow down, kid, or you're gonna barf.” Samson lay on the floor, an empty dog near his head. Traitor. The baseball bat -  _Lucille?_  - leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Well look who joined the party.” Negan grinned lewdly at me and I glared back, snatching the newly laundered jeans and a tank top and locking myself in the bathroom. I was shocked to find they fit me perfectly. I didn’t even want to know how he knew what bra size I was. By the time I was done, they had finished their pancakes. A large plate was left for me. I sat down at the table to tuck in but stopped with my fork halfway to my mouth at the sight on the bed.

Deano stood on the mattress, arms above his head as Negan pulled off his makeshift nightie before helping him into some child-sized clothes that had not been in the drawers the night before. Obviously, talking a whole lot of nothing for the duration of the task. Once that task was completed, he carried the boy through to the bathroom and shut the door. After a few seconds, I resumed my breakfast, hovering between disbelief, anxiety and a strange feeling that remained elusive. The plate clattered as I dropped it in the sink.

The bathroom door opened again and the two emerged. Deano ran to me and jumped into my arms. His breath was fresh and slightly minty. I met Negan’s eyes over his head.

I let my eyes turn flinty as I shifted Deano to my side. Shoulders back, feet apart. Ready for a fight.

"I'm sorry, I must have missed the memo, are we cohabiting now? Was that a part of the deal I missed because I want to renegotiate," I snapped.

His smile turned sharp and  _dangerous_. He leant close, pressing his mouth to the ear on the opposite side to which I held Deano. I tried to flinch away but a heavy hand clenched down on my shoulder. "Sugar tits, you're in no position to negotiate. I own you, and your kid, and your mutt. Don't fucking push me."

He swung back just as suddenly, the tension gone even as my heart ran wild with palpitations.

“So,” he clapped his hands together in anticipation, “How about that tour?” 

 

 

He lead us down concrete corridors, Deano propped on my hip. Samson, Negan insisted, was to be left in the room. I decided not to fight him on it yet, though my fury still ran hot and heavy in my veins after the undercurrent of fear receded. I struggled to remain immune to the whines as we walked away. We entered an open room, filled with tables and benches, a large kitchen overlooking it. It was filled with the low hum of chatter as people finished their breakfast. Negan’s appearance seemed to cause a slight stir as people hurried faster in their motions, streaming off in different directions.

“This is the mess hall. Meals are at 6-8, 12-2 and 6-8. You’re late, you don’t eat. I’m treating the both of you today but don’t get fucking used to it. “ He led me over to a table predominated by men, though a few hard looking women sat together in the corner. “These are the people you’re gonna be working with so I don’t wanna hear any little birds tweeting in my ears you're not fucking playing nice.” That would be a difficult promise to keep, I thought idly, looking at one of the men from the town glaring at me.

“Arat,” he barked and a lean woman with dark hair tipped with blonde stood to attention. “Arat’s your mommy from here on out. You do what she tells you.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I muttered snidely before biting my tongue. He only looked over to send me a smouldering gaze. I flushed, infuriated by both him and my reaction.

“Arat, this is Dora. She’s gonna be a Saviour. She’ll be with us for a while now so you better take care of her.”

Arat stared me down and I knew what she was thinking. This is the bitch who killed three of my men. I'm sure she had already thought of a number of ways to _take care of me_. Likely out of sight, with a blunt instrument. She broke our gaze and nodded at Negan, who smirked.

“Alright then. Now fuck off, the lot of you.” They scrambled to take their trays away. We watched them leave, Negan looking damn pleased with himself.

“Saviour?” I murmured as he pressed a hand to my back to get me moving again. I shoved down the urge to push it away.

“Cool fucking name, huh? S’what we call the people we send out on supply runs. ‘Cause they’re saving our fucking asses.”

At some point, as we were walking, he’d shifted his hand from my back to my hip, pressing his side to fit the curve of mine. I shifted awkwardly while he and Deano, who clung to my other side, behaved as if this was the norm. We turned a corner and came face to face with the man from last night, whose brother I had killed. He glared at me, “You-”

Then Negan shifted us slightly to the side so he stood directly in front of the man. Like I needed his protection, I scoffed to myself.

“Now Sydney, I know you weren't being rude to our guest here, were you?”

“No, Negan.” Eyes widened, and the young man ducked his head, realising just exactly who it was dragging me around.

“I want you to fucking apologize.” My head spun and I looked up at Negan. He ignored me in favour of glaring Sydney into the ground. “On your knees, Syd.”

The man was aflame with anger, shame, and lingering mourning. He stumbled on his way to his knees. I tugged at Negan’s jacket. “Negan, don't bother-”

“No. Syd the Kid knows better, and so do I.”

Tears ran down his cheeks as he avoided looking at us. I shuffled awkwardly, painfully. Deano looked on, confused, but silent.

“I’m sorry, Negan.”

“Not to me, to her, you little cum stain.” Tapping Lucille menacingly on the floor.

“I’m sorry…”

“Dora,” I supplied quietly after Negan nudged me, hating every moment.

“Dora.”

Negan kept him there, sniffling, for a few more painful moments before shoving us past him. “Get back to work, kid,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I gritted out.

Negan looked at me like I was stupid. “If he hadn’t fucking seen me, he was one inch from fucking killing you.” Deano’s little arms tightened around my neck like a noose.

“I did kill his brother, Negan.”

He does a full body shudder. “I _love_ the way you say my name.” And serious, deadly Negan is gone in the wind, and that menacing fury was all but a memory. I pulled away from him, ashamed suddenly, of myself and of Negan. Negan either didn't notice or doesn’t care. Both options equally likely.

I was shown the Infirmary, the stockroom, and the other ‘hotspots’, as Negan called them. He also explained the points system. We went back for Samson at my insistence before we toured the gardens, allowing him to take care of his business. As we entered the room, I noticed what I had failed to this morning: that our backpack was gone.

“Where is it?” I turned to Negan, panic and anger fuelling me combined.

He didn’t play dumb like I had expected him to. “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, sugar tits. Payment, I told you. You have to earn what you get here.”

“There’s something in the bag.” I was starting to hyperventilate. “Pictures. Please-”

“Save your fucking breath. I’m not a fucking monster.” Out of his jacket, he pulled a handful of worn, damaged photographs. I snatched them from his hands. One of my sisters, my parents. One, I had taken of Deano not long after I’d first found him, swaddled in blue, Samson curled around him. A few more of Deano as he grew, including his first steps, until the cartridge for the polaroids had run out. One photo was missing.

“There was another photo-”

“That’s all that was in there when we grabbed the bag, sweets. Now, I’m fucking hungry. Let’s go get lunch.”

An attractive woman came up to Negan during lunch and stole him away with a wink and whisper in the ear. He’d sauntered off with a dirty grin and a vulgar hip thrust. I rolled my eyes. He was too much to be real. How anyone could have that much personality shoved into one body, I had no idea. Deano had fun playing with his food and I indulged him, alone at a table of our own. A tall ginger haired woman suddenly sat down across from me. Her face was smooth and unscarred, but emotionless, bow lips turned down at the corners. Brown eyes hard. She looked a lot like myself, I realised, surprised, and slightly amused.

“So your Negan’s new toy?” Her voice was nasal and dry.

I gently lifted Deano off my lap and onto the bench next to me, allowing him to play aeroplanes by himself. Her eyes followed him briefly before flicking back to me, something unreadable in her eyes.

“For the time being,” I said, matching her impassivity as I leaned across the table. It had become apparent this wasn’t the kind of place where the meek shall inherit and all that. I had to establish myself as someone not willing to put up with bullshit.

She snorted, flicking her hair out of her eyes.

“Negan’s a wolf and you’re a tiny rabbit about to be eaten alive. People don’t leave the Sanctuary. Not alive, anyway.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

She made a disbelieving noise and shook her head, making to get up again. “You’ll be dead before the end of the month.”

And she left, disappearing into the mass of bodies as others got up from their tables, having finished their meals. I looked down at my own and pushed it away.

What had I gotten myself caught up in?


	5. Oh Darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora goes on her first run for the Saviours. Negan continues to confuse and infuriate. Some of Dora's past is hinted at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Darling - The Beatles

 

I stopped Negan when I saw him that evening, cutting him off before he could say anything. “I want to start tomorrow.”

“I told you, I’ll give you a week-”

“I want to get started. Pay my dues.” I met his eyes seriously.

He drew himself up and I was suddenly reminded of his sheer presence, towering over me. I straightened myself, but still only managed to reach his shoulder. He looked down into my eyes.

“Why?”

“We’re not staying any longer than we have to.”

He smirked wide. “We’ll see.”

I felt myself grow irritated, infuriated by this man and his egotistical self-assurances of his own magnetism, of his power over me. He thought he was the bees fucking knees. “You can’t make us stay once I’ve paid the debt.”

He strode off. “Who said I’ll have to?”

I ran after him, every stride of his equal to two of mine. “So?”

“So what?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Whatever floats your fucking boat. Meet Arat down at mess by 0800. I’ll let her know you’re joining her.”

“Okay, cool. We’ll be down there-”

“Whoa whoa whoa.” He threw up his hands, stopping so suddenly I ran into his back. Turning, he grabbed me by my shoulders. “We? Who’s we?”

“Me, Deano and Samson. I’m not-”

“No. No fucking way.”

“Why not?” I demanded, furious.

‘You’re not taking a fucking toddler out there-”

“I’ve looked after him just fine until now, haven’t I?”

“That’s not the fucking point-”

“Where I go, Deano goes.”

I drew back as he leant in, eyes flashing at being disobeyed, mouth drawn in a dark line. “I’m not fucking moving on this. The kid stays here.”

“And _I_ am not leaving him alone in a place full of fucking strangers. Some of whom, need I remind you, tried to rape and kill me.”

“You really think I’d let someone hurt a kid on my watch-?”

A thought struck and I knew I had my dealbreaker. “So you’ll watch him then?”

This time he retreated, looking utterly confused. “What?”

I crossed my arms and strengthened my stance. I had him. “You don’t want Deano with me when I go out. I don’t want him with strangers when I’m not there. You can look after him while I’m gone.”

“No fucking-”

I sighed dramatically, taking a leaf out of Negan’s book. “I guess I’ll just have to take him with me then.”

His face dawned with understanding and he looked torn between being impressed with my underhandedness and annoyance at being press-ganged.

“You fucking minx- I-” Suddenly, his face relaxed, and as it did, so did his posture, slumped into his familiar jaunty stance. “Sure, I’ll look after the kid.”

My mouth gaped open. I racked my brain. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Negan, if anything, started looking even more pleased with himself. I spluttered for a moment, feeling my cheeks warm at being so easily foiled. “I- uh-”

“Fuck yeah,” he waved a hand like he was doing me a favour. “I’ll look after the kid. I’m only doing fucking admin at the moment anyway. He can keep me company.”

What could I do but lie in the hole I’d dug myself into. “Do you know how to look after a two and a half-year-old?”

Negan just grinned. Like the cat that caught the canary.

“How fucking hard can it be?”

  


It turned out to be more difficult getting Deano to let me go than anything else. We had a breakfast together, all three of us, Negan having talked to the cooks to provide something for Samson as well. I was still surprised he was being so lenient with Samson, despite being a self-pronounced ‘pussy’ man. I’d found myself incredibly uncomfortable, amongst so many people again after so long, without Negan as a kind of buffer. It was when Negan swooped by, lifting Deano off of my lap and into his arms, that things started to go south. Deano had watched on in confusion when I handed Negan a list of instructions that had been added to continually for the last two hours. I kissed him on the forehead and tried to turn away before the tears started. I wasn’t quick enough.

“Samson, stay.” The dog whined but complied.

“Dora? No, I want to go with Dora.”

“Nah, kid. You’re spending the day with me. We are gonna have _so_ much fun.”

The volume started to increase as I backed away.

“No! I want Dora! DORA!”

My instincts warred within me. _Deano. Crying._

Negan’s eyes were hard even as he dodged flying fists. Everyone was staring. I was frozen. “Dora, go.”

_Crying, crying. Where’s the baby?_

“NOOOO! DORA, YOU PROMIS’D!”

I swallowed back tears. “I’ll be back, Deano. Only a few hours-”

“DOOOORAAA!”

A hand closed around my arm and pulled me away. I let myself be led blindly, never taking my eyes off of Deano. Then we turned a corner, and he was gone.

“What a mess.” Next to me, Arat shook her head before appraising me properly. I wiped furiously at my eyes.

“So you’re the chick who took out three of my guys, huh?” She looked me up and down. “Thought you’d be taller.”

“Maybe a few scars,” a blonde man behind her suggested with a wry smile.

“Never thought she’d be a weepy bitch,” muttered a voice from the back. The man whose nose I’d broken.

We were outside then, and the light temporarily blinded me. My vision cleared and ginger hair swayed in front of my eyes. A familiar nasal voice, “And yet she managed to get the drop on you.”

“What I want to know is how you got Negan to look after the brat?”

All eyes turned on me. I shrugged, slightly pissed off by the brat comment. “He offered.”

They all stared.

“Huh,” commented blondie. Arat quickly took control of the situation.

“Alright. Paula's showing you the ropes. Learn fast.”

I was left alone with the tall ginger woman. I looked up at her to find her frowning down at me. She turned and marched off. I stood still, watching her until she glanced back at me, surprised I was so far behind.

“Move your damn butt already.” She yelled, impatiently as she opened the door to a van, sliding in.

I followed after her, determined to get through this day and all the days following until our three months were up. Then we could get away from these bitter, crazy people. “I don't have any stuff,” I said as I climbed into the van on the passenger side.

“You’ve got to earn it.”

I stared at her, disbelieving. “What about walkers?”

She shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Them’s the rules.”

“And if I die?”

“I told you so.”

How comforting.

  


“He’ll be fine, you know.”

We’d been driving for at least an hour. I’d discovered we weren’t going with the rest of the Saviours. Instead, we were doing a run to a warehouse about 40 miles out. The furthest I’ve been from Deano was about 30 metres. And not voluntarily. Trees blurred outside the windows. Face pressed to the glass. Arms empty of something _important_.

“Before,” her nasal voice broke slightly, before hardening, “I had to go to work after dropping my daughter off at school for the first time. She had screamed, like really, bamboo under fingernails, howling. I cried driving away from her.”

“I spent all that day running through every possibility. Her teacher was abusive, violent. She ran away and was hit by a car. She fell off the slide on the playground and hit her head. I drove to pick her up 20 minutes before school was out.

Paula laughed, harsh and brittle. At some point, as she was talking I’d started crying, silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw, so had she.

“She wouldn’t leave until every last one of her new friends had left as well. She spent the whole car ride home chattering away about how she couldn’t wait to go back tomorrow. That kind of heartbreak you can never prepare for.”

I knew not to ask where her daughter was now. I couldn’t not acknowledge her loss. “What was her name?”

A whisper, softer than a breath, collapsing in on itself like a wave breaking on the shore. “Alice.”

“He’s not mine,” I whispered back. Secrets shared in the front seat, circulating in the air conditioning. “Deano. I’m not his mum. I just found him.”

Pale hands clenched on the steering wheel and red-rimmed brown eyes found a matching pair. “You haven’t left his side since you found him?”

“No.”

“How do you feel?”

“What?”

“Do you feel free?”

“No.” An invisible noose around my neck that never left tightened with every metre of distance travelled.

Those eyes turned knowing. “He’s yours alright.”

  


It had been about 6 months into the world going to shit when we’d run into _them._ I’d been alone, carting Deano around, who by that point still hadn’t spoken a word, despite all the books I’d found and read saying he should have by then. We were holed up in a barn, sharing a tin of baby food. Samson had been on a hunt. A voice had called from outside.

“We know you’re in there. Why don’t you come on out?”

I had stayed still, not even breathing, trying to be silent.

“We’re not gonna hurt you. We know you have a baby, we can help you.”

 

The asphalt burned even through the soles of my boots.

“So what are we looking for?”

Paula flicked a cigarette. “Something good.”

I grew irritated at the vagueness. “You ever gonna tell me anything?”

She looked at me like I was a patch of dried skin, peeling off. Annoying, ugly and a goddamn inconvenience. “You ever gonna shut up?”

The warehouse was large, like the factory, but sprawling. Easy to dismiss. It was a lot of ground to cover for just two people. I batted away a fly as I shielded my eyes from the unrelenting sun.

“Follow my lead.”

I trailed behind Paula as she led the way in through a back door. We went up a flight of stairs. Paula held a knife. I burned with resentment as I felt the empty weight of my knife sheath. She pushed open a door and we were looking down on a vast room filled with shelves upon shelves, all stocked full of crates and boxes. I couldn’t spot any walkers. But for a place like this to not have been hit, there had to be something lurking around. Thinking the same thing, Paula tapped the blade of her knife against the metal railing a few times. The clear note rang out, jarring the quiet. And still, no movement.

We moved down, slow and careful.

When we reached the ground floor it became apparent what we were there for. Rows upon rows. Ammunition. Weapons. Paula tossed me three duffel bags.

“Fill em’ up.”

I cringed internally every time my hands came in contact with the cold metal of a gun. I did, however, palm the knife I came across.

“Don’t like guns?” Derision.

“I’m usually being shot at when I come across one, so no, not really.”

“So.”

“So?”

“Have you said yes to Negan?”

I turned to her, broadcasting my question with raised brows. She raised her own in return, before shaking her head. “Figured he would have asked by now.”

“Asked me what?”

She grinned, sharp as a knife. “Maybe he wants to do it the old-fashioned way.”

I zipped up the last of the bags. “Do _what_?”

“Ask you to marry him of course.”

I choked loudly and she snickered. “Marry him? We just met? And maybe the fact he's holding me captive and using death threats and extortion to keep me docile?”

She shrugged with that smirk when someone knew more than you did and was enjoying rubbing your face in it. “Hasn’t stopped him before.”

I didn’t reply, confused as I was.

“So will you say yes? Become one of his wives?”

“Wives? Plural?”

“Big boss doesn’t need to limit himself. He’s the king of our little country. He acts like it too.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it of all these confusing realities of living with other people again. A new world, a new order.

“Why would he ask me?”

She sent me a scathing look. “I sure as hell don’t know.”

“I mean, I’m not even staying, we hate each other.”

“Keep telling yourself that, kid.”

The conversation dropped when a group of walkers turned the corner of the row we were on. We stayed quiet after they were dealt with.

  


It was the thick southern twang in the end, that had drawn me out. A confident, soothing, sirens song. A man’s voice. I had crawled to the window of that barn. Through the dirty glass just able to make out three figures. One wore a Cowboys hat, blond hair underneath. They weren’t armed. They had known they wouldn’t need them.

I had scurried down the ladder, stupid as a rabbit running to a fox. I stepped out of the barn door. Blue eyes met mine. A smile so beautiful. He was handsome. I had been charmed, seduced. I had been a fool.

  


We relayed about 20 bags in total. There was still a lot remaining but the sun had begun to wane and Paula said there was no need to be staying out into the night. We got back into the van, tired and hungry. Paula reached into her backpack and pulled out a 10mm pistol. She tossed it into my lap. I flinched but thankfully, she was looking out onto the road.

“Here. Negan said you could have one.”

I hastily knocked it into my own pack. “And you decided to wait until now because…?”

“You think I’m giving a girl I don’t know, who had killed some of our people a gun, on a run alone together?”

Fair point. “Did you know them?”

“Jimmy and Mickey were filth. I’m glad they’re dead. The way they’d watch some of the women back at the Sanctuary. If they hadn’t tried it with you, they’d have tried it back at the base. They’d still wind up dead.”

She paused. “Shaun was a good kid. He was only sent out with them that day for the first time.” She turned to look me in the eyes, serious. “His brother wants you dead.”

“I got that, actually. I don’t think he’s the only one.” I breathed out, deep. You kill to survive, you always end up with enemies.

“So you know, as soon as you’re alone, you’re dead.”

“Negan already warned him off.”

One ginger brow came up. “Negan can’t do shit if someone feeds you to walkers or stirs shit up. You need the Sanctuary on your side.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“On my side.”

“Won’t make a difference when you’re found dead in the Cage.”

“You’re underestimating me.”

“Maybe I am.”

  


We pulled up as the sun was setting. Leaning on the railing overlooking the entrance stood a silhouetted leather clad figure. In one arm, a smaller figure, asleep. Samson barked, tail wagging. Negan winked down at me, heading back inside. I stared after him. Paula snorted behind me.

“Sugar, you’re doomed.”

I scowled at her, grabbing my pack as some of Negan’s goons started unloading the van. I started towards the building.

“Hey.” Paula. She was leant against the white van, calm, with lips quirked up.

“I’m gonna ask Arat if we can work together tomorrow as well. Don’t want you being killed on your second day on the job.”

I felt my own lips tug up on old, almost forgotten instinct. I turned my back on her, giving her the one fingered salute over my shoulder. I heard her bark of laughter as I entered the Sanctuary.

It didn’t take me long to find Negan, despite my unfamiliarity with the building. He loitered outside the mess, swaying gently. I paused to appreciate the sight before I was noticed. I never thought I’d trust another to look after Deano, not after _him_. And here I was, giving him away, my second day in a new place full of strangers, to their psychotic leader.

I set forward again, each stride eating up distance until I was holding him again and the noose around my neck finally loosened. Negan grabbed Samson by the ruff on his neck to stop him from knocking me over. I looked up at him.

“Thank you,” I whispered, briefly overcome. A sleeping Deano snuggled further into me. I forced myself to loosen my grip.

Negan shrugged wide grin in place, before nudging me into the mess hall. It was empty but for one tray, piled with food.

“What happened to earning my keep?”

“This is from the points you earned today. I took the liberty using the rest to stock up your room, I hope that’s fucking okay with you.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as I sat down, Samson curling by my feet. Negan sat opposite me easily, like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. I thought back to what Paula said as I started eating.

“Why was it only Paula and I today?”

He helped himself to a sausage. Lucille leaned against the table. What was the significance of that name, I wondered. “Paula’s one of my lieutenants. She was assessing you. That warehouse a scout had found. I needed a small group to check it out before we really cleared it out. You two did the job. Another group will head there tomorrow to really pack it all up.”

I nodded absentmindedly, stifling a yawn in my hand.

“Come one. Let’s get you two the fuck to bed.”

He walked us to our room and watched as I put Deano to bed. I felt uncomfortable, scrutinised. I cleared my throat. I couldn’t think of anything other than Paula’s words. _Maybe he wants to do it the old-fashioned way._

“What happened to the kid’s folks?”

I stiffened. “What happened to Lucille?”

His face darkened and his grin became savage. “Tou-fucking-ché.”

I showed him to the door. He leaned in the frame before I could shut it, looming over me. Eyes burning. Dark, not blue, I reminded myself.

“You gonna kiss me goodnight, sugar tits?”

“You gonna ask me to marry you? Jeez, honey we only just moved in together,” I snarled back. He looked shocked for a second but that disappeared with a laugh and a razor of a smirk.

“Should have figured Paula would try to stir shit. You want me to, sweets?”

“I’m not gonna be one of your wives, Negan.”

“We’ll fucking  see.” Hooded eyes gave me a saucy wink as he started to back away.

I had to call after him. “We’re not staying. Three months, then we’re gone.”

He just grinned, big and wide. I shut the door.

What a fucking dick.

As I slept all I could see was the blonde cowboy smiling charmingly before morphing into Negan, smirking, swallowing me whole.

  


I asked Deano what he had done with Negan while I had been gone the next morning as I got ready.

“We played I Spy,” he mumbled. I gently pulled the thumb from his mouth.

“Yeah?”

He nodded seriously. I lifted him up and started to make our down to the mess. “What else did you do?”

“Boy stuff.”

“Boy stuff? What exactly does that entail?”

He shook his head, solemn as anything. I clung to him for all I was worth. “Negan says girls can’t know.”

_Hmph_

I handed Deano over again, after breakfast was done, the noose back and making itself known. Another piece of my heart breaking away. Floating off with the dust in the air. I made my way to Paula, who stood by a car this time. She nodded behind me. Negan stood at the railing again, Deano on hip, Samson at feet. He blew me a kiss as we drove off.

I was younger when I had fallen for that blonde cowboy. I didn’t know then what I knew now. A smile and blue eyes were all it had taken I was lost. I would not be making the same mistake again.


	6. We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora is forced to socialise with disastrous results. She runs into more of her past and she REALLY pisses Negan off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place - The Animals
> 
> Sorry for the slow update. I've been figuring out exactly where Dora is headed. It should be good.  
> Thanks for all the lovely comments. Please continue to do so, I enjoy them so much.

 

After a week I got used to it; leaving Deano with Negan. It was still there. The noose. Reminding me it was almost definitely a mistake. A failure.

I would leave early, always with Paula. I didn’t think Arat would trust me with anyone else yet. I didn’t talk to anyone else in the Sanctuary. Just Negan and Paula and Deano.

Our runs largely consist of silence on my part, which Paula seems to appreciate, though she does occasionally deign to make a barbed comment about something, anything really. I was beginning to think she actually liked me.

It was strange, spending so little time with Deano. When just a week ago it had been just us, and Samson. I had kept him fed, clean and safe. Now I was letting someone else do that job. One job left in this world and I couldn’t even do that. No, I was freeing us. One run at a time, another link in the chain broken.

The Sanctuary itself made me uncomfortable. Walking the long, cold hallways, illuminated by artificial light after so long outside, sleeping under the stars. It felt a bit like a papier mache castle, ready to deflate in the next spring rain. All those people, strutting in and out. Finger puppets in a child’s fantasy. Because that was all this place was. A fantasy. Maybe a nightmare.

_Three months. Then we leave._

 

 

 

After two weeks, there was the pressure, but without the threat of choking. Like a hand on my jugular, firm but gentle. I imagined it was Negan’s hand. Wide smirk, black leather.

One day I returned later than usual. We had been cut off by a herd and had to take a detour. We had missed dinner but I had assumed that was where Negan would be waiting for me, a sleeping Deano in his arms. I stopped at the mess. It was empty. The hand clenched, and I struggled to breathe evenly as I climbed the stairs to my room. I opened the door.

Leaned against the headboard of the bed, was Negan, tilted slightly, eyes closed, beard thicker. A soft snore sighed from his mouth. Curled into him was Deano, so peaceful. His dark curls covering his face as he shuffled closer into Negan’s warmth. Samson stared at me from the end of the bed, amber eyes catching the light from the corridor.

I felt my body stagger into the room. I curled up in the armchair directly opposite the bed. My eyes fixed on their sleeping forms, I held my knees to my chest, and counted my breaths until the pressure eased, my shaking slowed and my eyes closed.

When I woke, I was in the bed and Negan was gone.

Every time I left, he watched from the railings. That time he wasn’t.

We found a house with a stockpile of painkillers and antibiotics. On the drive back, we hit a liquor store for the hell of it. That night, Negan toasted us with a top of the line 30-year-old scotch. He met my eyes and grinned.

 

 

 

By three weeks there was only an imaginary bruise lining my throat, tender to press. I sat at mess alone, Negan having already swept Deano away in a whirlwind of buck-tooth smiles and expletives. I was surprised not to have heard a ‘Good fucking morning’ yet from Deano. I snorted to myself and as I did, I heard the telltale click-clack of heels. Two slender bodies sat themselves down on the bench opposite me. I looked up, curious and wary.

Two women. But not like many of the other women I had noticed wandering the Sanctuary. Hardened, coarse, and brittle. Products of the New World. No, these two lacked any of that rigidity that came with the ongoing struggle to survive. Undoubtedly they had done at some point, but not, I surmised, for some time. Their hair, red and brunette respectively, was brushed smooth and clean. Recently cut and washed. Obviously styled. They wore makeup, I realised in shock, not cheap pharmacy makes either, and pretty little black dresses like they were some kind of a uniform.

I waited for them to say something, bamboozled by these strange creatures. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long.

“Hi, I’m Frankie,” smiled the redhead before gesturing to the brunette, “and this is Tanya. We just wanted to say hi, and welcome to the Sanctuary.”

What was this, Pleasantville? Were they real? I eyed them sceptically. They both looked to be perhaps in their late 20s, early 30s. Definitely older than me.

“I’ve been here three weeks,” I decided on after a prolonged gap, punctuated by the two glancing awkwardly at each other.

“Oh, we know.” They exchanged a knowing glance. “You’ve been driving somebody crazy since you first ran into the Saviours.”

I raised a brow, uninterested, and glanced over their shoulders. The other Saviours were still eating. I sighed and decided to take the bait. “Who, exactly?”

“Why, Negan of course.” They giggled. What a fucking cliche. “He’s been wearing all of us out.”

My other brow lifted with my first. They didn’t look like they worked here at all. Tanya continued, not noticing my incredulity, “Our beloved husband sure does know how to tire a girl out.”

Beloved husband. It clicked.

“You’re Negan’s wives.”

“Not all of them,” Frankie hastened to clear up like she was reassuring me over it. “There’s Amber, and Georgia and Tammie.”

“We heard you might be-”

“No,” I cut across them. “No, no, no, no. I’m not marrying Negan.”

“He treats us well if that’s what you’re worried about. We don’t have to work at all-”

“Yeah, I can see that.” I had to laugh, lip curling. “Do you seriously just do nothing all day, getting served food, given clothes you didn’t do a single thing to help get. And then at the end, you scurry along at Negan’s call, no knickers on and all that?”

Their mouths had fallen open. I suddenly felt irrationally angry. “You think I’m going to join some strange man’s harem and suck his dick every night just to kick my feet up? You’re really okay with taking shit other people worked hard to supply and go around like little walking talking blow-up dolls. Are you two even fucking real? Have you been outside?”

“Negan keeps us safe,” Tanya said softly. I shot her a look, scathing.

“If you think this place is safer than anywhere else in this world you two are dumber than I thought.” I stood from the bench, picking up my tray. “I could kill the two of you right now with a fucking spork and you wouldn’t be able to do jackshit. Thanks for the fucking welcome.”

I ditched the tray and strode over to Arat, vibrating in front of her like an angry wasp. She looked on unimpressed before going back to eating her breakfast

“You're with me today.”

For a moment, I was shocked out of my anger. I was going on a run with Arat. She was hard and intimidating, and Negan valued her up there with Simon, but that was all I knew. She was yet to finish so I stalked off to the car and threw myself inside. Fury made me still so I simply waited, staring out over the fences and the walkers. By the time Arat had got in the car, my anger had cooled some, to a sulky silence.

“Who pissed in your cereal?” She muttered as we pulled away.

It was strange but not that dissimilar from how Paula and I worked together. They both acted like it was a chore.

“Where are we going?” I asked finally, strangely uncomfortable with the silence, coming from her. Unlike Paula, she didn't kick up a fuss about me asking questions.

“Negan wants us to check out a small group that has settled down not far from the Sanctuary. Recon only.”

She shot me a look at that and I glared right back. How the fuck did she think I'd survived so long if I hadn't learnt to be sneaky.

“Where's your gun?” She asked suddenly.

“In my pack.”

“And what good is it going to do there?”

“I thought this was recon.”

“Get your gun out of your pack.”

Reluctantly, I shoved the gun into my waistband. When she caught my eyes I pulled a face at her. She shook her head with a scowl.

“I don’t know how Negan likes you.”

It was my turn then, to scowl out of the window.

 

 

She pulled over on the deserted straight of road.

“They’ve got a Barnhouse about 200 metres on the other side of those trees.”

The forest was dense, and I realised this couldn’t be far from where Deano and I had been holed up. It was odd, I thought idly, as we walked quietly through the trees. I felt like I recognised these woods.

Her voice was low now, hand at the gun on her waist. “They’re a small group. 5 or so, the scout reported.” For a moment, I wondered if this was all a ploy. Negan had sent her to take me out here to execute me. No, that wasn’t Negan’s style.

Something crunched underfoot. Arat brought up her gun and I looked down. A trap. The rabbit caught in it already chewed on by other forest critters. Arat breathed out heavily through her nose. She made to move on but I crouched down, examining the expert craftsmanship. I brought a hand to my head, feeling a headache beginning to form.

“I know where we’re going.”

“What?” She looked at me sharply.

“I know who made these. I know where we’re going.” I repeated firmly, getting to my feet.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You know these people?”

I ignored her, striding forward, wishing desperately that I had been allowed to bring Samson with me. She grabbed my forearm but I shook her off. I was knocked off my feet, thrown to the side. The world spun slightly. I shook my head. Kicking my legs out. Reaching for my knife.

My arms were pinned. She sat on my stomach, face twisted in anger. “You dumb bitch, you want to get us killed?”

I struggled under her. “Those people need to die.”

“Negan said recon. We go, we look, we leave. Do I need to knock you out?”

“No.” I went limp under her. She eyed me cautiously, leaning back. “I’ll do it.”

She loosened her grip on my wrists and I surged up, striking my forehead to hers. She fell back, out cold. I got to my feet and looked down at her. Guilt blossomed. I couldn’t leave her here as walker bait. I heaved her up, leaning her tall body against mine, and dragged her back to the car. I lay her down across the backseat, turning her into the recovery position, before shutting the door and locking her in.

As I made my way back through the woods I felt my body shift. Perfectly still, moving in silent, fluid motions. Knife in hand. I crouched at the opening of the woods. There it was. Grand, old and distinguished. One of those old colonial houses. Maybe even an old plantation. A woman sat on the porch, rocking in a chair, knitting away. I melted back into the trees, making my way around the back of the house. The fire pit was still there. Recently lit. It still smelt the same. I sneered and began to creep forward. I was out of the cover of the trees.

I opened the back door. A man sat at a table with his back to me, cleaning a gun. My knife was in his neck and my other covered his mouth before he could make a sound. I gently took his gun from his hands and laid it down gently, pulling the man to rest back against the chair. My hand came away coloured red. I moved on.

A young man in the hallway. Cover the mouth, stab in the stomach. I lowered him to the floor. Blood had splashed up onto my top. I moved on.

I went upstairs first. One teenager. She went down easily, knife in the eye. A man and a woman in the next room. Knife in the heart of the man. Lost grip as he went down. The woman was coming at me with a hatchet. I ducked, throwing myself to side. I scrambled for a weapon. A rusted umbrella shaft missing its prongs. I grabbed it and spun, spearing her through the stomach. Her mouth gurgled, red spewing, splattering my face. I shoved at the shaft, and she collapsed backwards with a thump, umbrella sticking up like a flagpole. I retrieved my knife, left rather than staying to watch her twitch.

The woman on the porch came through the front door as I made my way down the stairs. Her eyes rounded, as she floundered for a weapon. “You.”

“Me,” I agreed, descending slowly.

Her mouth opened to call out until she noticed the blood splattered across my body, dripping from my hand. She looked to the right and threw a hand to her mouth, seeing the body of the young man, blood pooling, seeping through the floorboards. A sob choked its way out of her and she reached out her hands to me, shaking.

“Please, I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me.”

Dispassionately, I reached out to her, holding her hands lightly. I pulled her towards me, and she stumbled, as naive as a child. I moved my hand left hand to cup her face. Her blue eyes stared at me, glistening with fear and hope intermingled. I watched them widen as I slid my knife into her skull.

She fell like the others.

And I moved on.

 

 

I was dragging the bodies into a pile in the kitchen when I heard footsteps storming up the porch. I waited with my back to the door. A hand wrapped itself in my hair and pulled. I staggered backwards and tripped. Arat jumped on top of me, tight curls flying from their tie, face contorted in fury. She grabbed my knife from its sheath and threw it to the side. A fist shot out, striking me on the cheek.

“You *punch* Stupid *punch* Crazy *punch* Bitch,” she snarled. I tilted my head to the side and spat out blood. A molar came with it. My eyes met those of a corpse. I rubbed at my jaw, not fighting back. She was in the right after all. My vision swam.

“I had to kill them,” I slurred.

“Bullshit, you had to kill them. We had orders!” A punch in the gut.

“They would have killed us.”

“And how the fuck would you know that?”

“Have-” Deep breath, “a look in the fridge.”

She stopped her shower of violence. “What?”

I wheezed, clutching my stomach. “They’re flesh eaters, cannibals.”

She got off me, shaking her hand out, and made her way over. Against the kitchen wall stood three giant fridges, all different makes, hooked up with a snake's nest of wires. I struggled to my feet, propping myself up against the door frame. I looked on as she opened one, then slammed it shut, before hesitantly opening it fully. From my vantage point, I could see a haunch of thigh, skinned and pink. And human.

Arat vomited on the floor.

I would have too, if not for the aching pain.

“I was here, last summer, just after this thing all started. Deano and I holed up in the loft when these stragglers came by, asking for shelter. I said yes. I hadn’t seen anyone alive in weeks. They stayed and it was fine. Until I woke up in the middle of the night and Deano was gone.”

_Empty crib. Baby crying._

_Where’s the baby?_

“I came downstairs and they had him, laid out, right here. One of them holding a fucking carving knife. Samson got him. I grabbed Deano. And we ran.”

Arat pushed herself upright, staring at me, eyes unreadable as she wiped at her mouth. A knife pressed against my back.

“Never thought I’d see you again, bitch.”

Arat had her gun up and pointed at the man behind me. I lifted my hands only for him to jab me. I gasped. “Don’t fucking move,” he growled. I felt him grope my sides for concealed weapons. I stared longingly at my knife half across the room. He found the gun. He giggled.

“Not even fucking loaded.”

“Leave now,” Arat stated calmly, “And you leave with your life.”

“Kill him,” I commanded. She ignored me.

“I don’t think so. You killed my family. I’m gonna leave this bitch alive as I cut the meat from her bones. You can watch as I eat your friend’s heart.”

“Shoot him.”

“Put the knife down,” she repeated.

“Shoot him.”

She pulled the trigger. The knife skimmed up my back as he dropped. I cried out. Suddenly, Arat was at my side, lifting my shirt.

“Shhh,” she murmured,”It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Doesn’t fucking feel like it,” I grunted, hand clenched on the table as she inspected it. She disappeared briefly, coming back after a few minutes with bandages.

“They had some in the bathroom.”

We were quiet as she wrapped me up, aside from the occasional hiss of pain.

“Karma’s a bitch.” I heard muttered from behind me.

“They deserved it.”

“I’m not talking about them, idiot. You should have explained it to me, we could have done this properly.”

I snorted. She slapped the end of the bandage as she pinned it and I yelped.

“You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you?”

“You think I’m enjoying this? You think I want to be here?”

“Why don’t you fucking leave then?” She sneered.

“As soon as the three months are up, I’m gone.”

“Jesus, you act like it’s such a goddamn hardship, living at the Sanctuary. Like we fucking tied you up and dragged you back there like some fucking Cinderella.”

“You might as well have.”

“Negan could have killed you and no one would have thought twice, no one would have cared. Just another dumb, crazy, road-bitch. But Negan spared your fucking life, some people saying he let you off easy. So you’re fucking told to stay until you pay off the resources you essentially stole from us. Big fucking deal. Stop acting like you’re such a fucking martyr.”

I scowled before reaching to turn on the gas at the elements. “Let’s blow this joint already.”

 

 

We left when the flames reached the top floor. The heat was suffocating and I was torn from the present to another roaring fire. I shrugged off the memories. I had dealt with enough of my nightmares for today. As we limped back to the car, Arat looked at me. “Why wasn’t your gun loaded?”

I tried to shrug her off. “I guess I just forgot. No harm no foul.”

“Fuck you, no harm no foul,” she snapped. “If that had turned into a firefight, you would have died. If we ran into a herd, you wouldn’t have had my back.”

“Well it didn’t, and we didn’t so there’s no point worrying about it now.” I quickened my pace, grimacing as it pulled at my back and the growing bruise on my stomach. My left eye was throbbing, and I licked at the cut on my lip.

Arat grabbed my shoulder, pulling me to a stop. She stared me down. I tried to squash the little pool of guilt in my gut. She seemed to reach a conclusion. My throat tightened at the disappointment and disgust on her face. She yanked the gun from my waistband.

“Load it,” she commanded.

I stared at her. She shoved it into my palm, and a handful of bullets into the other. “I-”

“Reload.”

I looked down at the gun in my hands. The cool metal bit my skin. “I… I can’t.”

She sneered at me, storming past me. Leaving me there with an unloaded gun.

“Get in the car.”

 

 

We arrived back at Sanctuary while the sun was still high. Arat slammed the door as she got out of the car.

“Arat, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it mattered-”

She turned on me, and my eyes flitted up to the dark bruise blossoming on her forehead. “You didn’t think it mattered? I sent you out there for three weeks with one of my own, not realising I was risking her life every fucking single time you went out.”

“Everything alright over here?” Negan.

He sauntered over. No Deano in sight. His face was unsmiling, dropping further into a frown when he took in our bloodied states. “What the living fuck happened to you two?”

“Ask her,” Arat snapped before marching past us. “I’m going to see the Doc.”

Negan turned to me, eyes appraising, and he leaned himself against the hood of the car. “Well? If I’m not fucking mistaken I sent you two on a scouting trip, and yet here you are, looking like fucking Rambo.”

“Where’s Deano?”

His eyes flashed dangerously and he swung Lucille, tapping the side of the car. “When I ask you a fucking question, I expect you to fucking answer it.”

“I knew them.”

“The fuck you said?”

“The group,” I rubbed my eye, hissing at the pain. “I’d come across them before.”

“And? That supposed to fucking mean something other than you’re a fucking psycho?”

“They were cannibals alright,” I snapped, slamming my own car door shut. “I couldn’t risk them trying to kill us so I killed them, you happy?”

He drew close quickly, pinning me against the side of the car. My back slammed into the car and I shouted.

“Do I fucking look happy?” When I said nothing, he jostled me. “Do I?”

I shook my head, avoiding his eyes. I felt my back start to bleed again.

“Why the fuck are you two so beat up if you killed those scumbags?” He raised a hand and caressed my lip. I stared up at him, mouth open. I looked down, ashamed.

“Arat tried to stop me…”

Suddenly he was pressing down on bruise around my eye. I cringed away from the pain, eyes watering. He shoved his face into mine. I could see every shade of grey in his eyes this close, all narrowing in fury. “So you fought her, huh? Fought my top bitch because you wanted to go John Wick on those fuckers. You said you didn’t do teams, I didn’t realise just how fucking bad you were at it ‘cos that, that is so not fucking cool.”

“I came down here to ask you why you’ve been telling my girls' horror stories, hurting their feelings. And here I come, and I find out you’ve been pulling even more shit”

"What’s your fucking problem, huh? Here I thought you were settling in fine and now you’re flipping your shit all over the fucking place, throwing your toys out of the pram like a fucking baby.”

“You all keep acting like I got so much to grateful for. What exactly am I supposed to be happy about here?” I snapped back before a leather-wrapped hand smacked me across the face, the other eye. I fell to the ground at Negan’s feet, clutching my face. His hit was more jarring than Arat’s. I could feel blood drip. He shoved me with his knee. I glared up at him through my fingers.

“You should be fucking grateful. I could have killed you in that clearing, but I didn’t. I could have taken that kid, and killed you and your mutt then and there. I could kill you right now. And no one would even think about stopping me.” He crouched down over me, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear. When I shoved him away, he grabbed me by the hair, forcing me to look at him.

“That’s because they are my people. And I look after my people. I get shit for them and I kill shit for them. So when I wanna kill some little bitch,” the hand twisted painfully, “causing me trouble, they’ll look the other way. ‘Cos that’s what being in a group means.”

He released my hair in favour of grabbing my chin, forcing me to nod. “Uhuh, but I’m not going to kill you. I don’t fucking know why in all honesty I probably should kill you right now. I will kill you if you cross me like this again. So here’s what you’re gonna do.”

“You’re going to run along, no trip to the Doc for you. You’re going to go to your room, no dinner. I’ll take Deano tonight. And you are going to think about what you’ve done.”

He forced me to nod again, sneering mockingly at me as he got to his feet. I stayed where I sprawled until he poked me un-gently with Lucille. “Well? Off you fucking pop.”

I crawled to my knees and he stopped with a boot to my chest. He leered at me. “Fucking forgot how much I like you on your knees, all nice and bloody.”

When he let his foot drop, I stood, swaying slightly.

“Now, give Daddy a kiss and tell him you’re sorry.”

I glared at him incredulously. He stayed impassive, leaning himself back on the car. As quick I could I swooped in to kiss his cheek, only for him to redirect me forcefully to his lips. I scrambled as he shoved his hot tongue into my mouth. In retaliation, I bit his lip, forcing the blood still oozing from my mouth across his as I pulled away. His mouth was red, from the bite and with my blood, like smeared lipstick. I’d marked him as much as he had marked me.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” And I walked away as fast I could, with my back aflame and my ribs aching, and my mouth hot and sore. We're leaving, I decided then. As soon as we could.

Laughter rang out behind me.


	7. Better Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora makes plans, reestablishes an enemy, and perhaps gets herself a new friend. Redemption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better Girl - Best Coast

 

I had become the pariah. The leper. The plague carrier. No one looked at me for fear of pissing Negan off. I felt a bit like Moses, parting the Red Sea. The man himself, our reverent Leader In Chief, acted as if I didn't exist. I was banned from runs by Arat so he had no cause to interact with me anymore. With nothing else to do, I sat in my room with Deano and Samson, or we wandered the halls. Our favourite spot became the garden. Partly because it was the only piece of nature in the whole complex, and because we never ran into Negan there.

The walks, of course, had a greater purpose than getting some fresh air. As we walked I began to map out the entire complex, every exit and every shortcut.

“Dora?”

“Yeah, Deano?”

“Why are your eyes black?”

“‘Cos I’m trying to look like a panda. Is it working?”

“What’s a panda?”

Occasionally I would cross pass with Negan’s wives. The ones I knew, and the ones I didn’t. It became apparent that the tale of my distaste had been passed on as all avoided my eyes and quickened their pace or turned a corner. I always wondered where they were going. What the hell did they even do when Negan wasn’t having his wicked way with them? Drink wine? Probably. I felt guilty as I thought it. Oh well.

Deano chattered away, a lot of it nonsense, holding my shaking hand as we walked, his other hand in Samson’s fur. I was enjoying having him back to myself though some issues were beginning to reveal themselves.

“Dora?”

“Yeah, Deano.”

“Why hasn’t Daddy come?”

“Negan’s not your daddy, Deano.”

“He said he was.”

“He was lying.”

He was quiet for a moment, enraptured by a butterfly. Samson leapt at it playfully. I lifted Deano up before he could be dragged with him. He giggled and begged me to do it again. I swung him gently by his arms, stepping through the carrot patch. I set him down on the other side. He ran ahead, picking a flower and bringing it back to me. It was small and delicate, a pale white colour. I tucked it behind my ear and ducked to kiss Deano on the cheek. We went back to walking, hand in hand.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why would he lie?”

“‘Cos he does stuff like that.”

“Why hasn’t he come? Does he not like the gardens?”

“I don’t know, Deano.”

“Could we ask him?” I cringed at the very thought. I imagined I could still taste him, against my teeth.

“Sure, Deano.”

Spring was intense here, more so than where I came from. You could feel the sun on your skin, burning, blistering. I had practically dunked Deano in suncream. Samson came running back with a stick in his mouth. We threw it for a while until Deano complained of hunger. As we turned, I saw a flash of denim disappear into the building. I narrowed my eyes and pulled Deano closer to me. I had my suspicions.

We were walking to the mess when we were cut off by  Arat and a girl who looked slightly younger than me with short strawberry blonde hair and delicate features. She reminded me of Tinkerbell.

“You’re coming with me,” Arat informed me kindly. I kid.

“Really?” I asked sarcastically.

“Leave the kid with Tina. Let’s go.”

“And why exactly should I do that?” I demanded, holding Deano close. Samson sat at my feet, tongue lolling. All this time at the Sanctuary was making him soft. Well, not just him.

Arat glared at me. “Look, I covered your ass about the gun thing with Negan, but you’re still in the shithouse. You wanna get out, you’re coming with me.”

“I’m not leaving Deano.”

“Tina’s a good kid. I trust her.”

The girl in question spoke up, “I’ll look after him. We’ll have lunch while you two go do your thing.”

I looked at her, head tilted, before nodding to Arat. I gently disengaged from Deano.

“Deano, this is Tina. She’s gonna get you some food. I won’t be long.”

Big brown eyes looked up at me. “Promise?”

I held out my pinky finger solemnly. “Promise.”

He took it with his own before turning to Tina and holding out his hand. I turned to the dog. He tilted his head, paying attention.

“Samson, guard.”

He woofed.

They turned to walk off.

“This is Samson. Dora says he’s called that ‘cuz he’s so hairy, like Samson and Delilah…” And then they turned the corner and Deano’s voice was lost to me. I sighed, facing Arat.

“So what are we doing?”

Her face twitched and I could tell she was fighting back a smirk. I scowled automatically.

“You’re going to learn how to shoot.”

  


“Stand up straight. You wanna shoot straight don’t you?”

Arat, I was beginning to realise, did a brilliant impersonation of a drill sergeant.

“Feet apart. You shoot that gun you’re gonna topple like a tree when that recoil hits.”

“Is that gun even loaded? No, it is not, swap magazines!”

“Where the fuck are you aiming?”

I hadn’t even fired the damn thing yet.

She had dragged me off to the back end of the Sanctuary, still within the fence line, but empty of the standard hustle and bustle of the other Saviours. We were alone, but for the guard-walkers.

Sweat began to gather at my hair as I fixed my eye along the barrel of the gun. My vision blurred slightly. I lifted a hand to wipe at my eyes.

“You take your eyes off the target, you’re dead.”

I shot her a glare before refocusing on the walker. It had been a woman, long blonde hair down to her waist. Maybe she had been a Stevie Nicks type before she had died. I’d never find out.

“Okay, keep your index finger straight along the outside of the trigger guard. Yeah, that bit there. Rest the other one against the trigger.”

“Yep, now support it with your left hand. And make sure your fingers are out of the way of the hammer or you’re gonna get bit.”

“Okay, safety off. Load. Now squeeze the trigger, that’s it. It will fire when you release it.”

“Kill that bitch.”

I released the trigger.

_Bang._

My ears rang as I checked my accuracy. I had hit a walker behind to the left of the one I was aiming for. A chunk of its arm was blown off.

“Again.”

And so we drilled for a good hour or so, by which point my arms were sore, and my head pounding. I had managed to at least hit what I was aiming for, if not managing head shots just yet. I sighed in relief when Arat ordered me to flick safety back on and put the gun away. I still hated guns. I don’t think that would change. But at least now I would have another skill in my arsenal for defending Deano when we got back to the woods.

“Not too bad for a complete newbie,” she commented, taking a look at a walker now ventilated with bullet holes. “How can anyone in the big US of A know absolutely nothing about guns?”

“I’m not American. I was only over here for a hiking holiday when shit went down.”

She whistled, clapping me on the shoulder. “Damn, that’s some shit right there.” I nodded a little nostalgic.

“I was gearing up for the Appalachian Trail when I was taken and put in one of those camps. A safe-zone.”

She snorted, looking disbelieving. “What a load of horseshit those were, right?”

Safe-zones, my ass.

As we headed back towards the building, I saw a small denim clad figure disappear around the side. I was distracted when Arat jostled me, pointing up at the building. I shielded my eyes from the sun to be able to make it out. Leather jacket, baseball bat. Negan.

The figure knelt down to pat Samson, who had watched from the top of the hill. He straightened, gave a lazy salute with the bat before wandering back inside.

“Told you so,” Arat murmured and when I shoved her, she laughed.

  


We had split up inside, Arat claiming she had to talk to Negan about something. I eagerly headed towards the mess for Deano instead, not quite ready to face Negan again. I strode down the empty hallways, unsurprised when footsteps fell into sync behind me. I turned my head slightly. Blue denim. I quickened my pace, turning a corner and pressing myself against the wall in wait. The footsteps grew louder with proximity despite obvious attempts to tread lightly. The unknown turned the corner and fell into my trap. I shoved them up against the wall, forearm across their throat.

Sydney. The brother of Shaun, the kid Samson had mauled to death.

“You’ve been following me.”

I wondered if his eyes were permanently ringed with red. His face contorted in a lethal concoction of rage and grief. I shook him. “Why have you been following me?”

“Why do you think?” he asked, voice vicious but lessened by the warble of threatening tears. “I want to kill you.”

I stared into his eyes, searching for something, before letting him drop. He looked shocked, keeping himself pressed back into the wall. Samson growled at my feet.

“Well? Go ahead. I deserve.”

He stayed still.

“I killed your brother. Kill me.” I grabbed my gun and shoved it into his hands. “Kill me.”

He held the gun between my eyes, shaking with muted sobs. I stared him down, counting, waiting.

He let the gun drop and started crying in earnest. “I- I can’t.”

“No. But would it make you feel better if I left?”

The kid looked up. He was probably a year or two older than me, but then all I saw was a boy, crying for his kid brother. “You haven’t finished the three months.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

“Negan will catch you.”

“Not if you help me.”

Understandably, he looked angry, confused. “Why should I help you? You killed my brother.”

I nodded, face expressionless. “And every time you see me, you see your brother’s body.”

He looked away again then, wiping away tears and snot.

“You’ll leave.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“Okay.”

And so, I had an accomplice.

  


We parted ways quickly, him reluctant to be in my presence for an extended period of time, myself, knowing how conspicuous our conversation would be to any passers by.

“Come to my room at midnight. I’ll have everything ready by then.”

I watched him leave, before carrying on my previous path to the mess. When I got there, all but one table was empty. Deano sat there, on Tina’s lap, playing with a toy car. As I drew closer, little ‘vroom vroom’ noises became audible. The boy looked up.

“Dora!”

He leapt out of the girl’s lap and toddled over as fast as his little legs could carry him. I swept him up into my arms as he began to trip. Pulling him up onto my hip, I pressed a kiss to his cheek which he giggled at. I turned to Tina to see her smiling at us, now standing as well.

“Thanks for watching him,” I said, slightly grudging.

She just smiled wider. “No problem. I’d be happy to do it again sometime.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Confusion entered her expression. “Oh, I thought you were staying?”

Backtracking, not wanting my plan to leave getting back to Negan, I hurried to say, “I am, but I’m not exactly in a position to leave anytime soon. I'm not exactly in the circle of trust at the moment.”

She looked at me knowingly, before nodding, like she was in on something.

“So you said yes?”

“What?”

“You’re going to marry Negan?”

 _Oh my god, fuck off._ “Why does everyone keep saying that. No. Never.”

She blushed, embarrassed. “Oh, sorry. I just thought-”

“Yeah, whatever.” I turned to leave.

“What does 'marry' mean?” _Deano, stop._

“It means… to partner up, stay together.”

“Like us?” I bopped his nose, hurrying up the stairs.

“Sort of. But more kissing. Between adults. But I’m _not_ doing that with Negan.”

“Not doing what with me?”

_Fuck._

I spun and Deano shouted happily. There stood Negan, smooth and smug as ever, lounging against the wall. Strangely, Lucille was missing, both his hands instead tucked into the pockets of his jacket. His eyes glittered at me.

“Kissin’!”

Internal scream.

“Oh?” Negan downright purred, face full of danger, starting to prowl towards us. I took a step back as he took one forward. Dark satisfaction flashed across his face in the form of a wide smirk.

“But you can’t, ‘cuz you’re not married.”

_Yeah, take that._

“I’m a modern guy.”

“Okaaay,” I intervened, ducking out of the corner Negan had backed us into. “We… we need to go.”

“Yeah?” Damn that smirk.

“Yeah.” I nodded my head eagerly. “Deano needs to go to the bathroom.”

“No, I don’t.”

Thanks, Deano.

“We need to go,” I repeated with a weak attempt at a smile.

Negan extended his arm in a show of gallantry. “By all means.”

_Dick._

  


It was 10:00 pm and Deano had been asleep for two hours when a knock came at the door. I opened it reluctantly, expecting Sydney to tell me he’d changed his mind, or Negan, coming to gloat how he’d found me out.

“Can I come in?”

Quietly, I exited the room, shutting the door behind me.

“I-”

I held a finger to my lips.

“Deano’s sleeping.”

“Sorry,” Tina whispered. She was wringing her hands, her face a mask of worry and guilt.

“I’m really sorry for any trouble I caused you with Deano earlier, mentioning Negan.”

Feeling suddenly exhausted, I leant back on the door and shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I overreacted.”

“Still, I’m sorry for assuming.”

I shrugged. “Everyone else does.”

“Still.”

“I’m leaving tonight.”

She stared at me wide-eyed, mouth open. “What?”

I crossed my arms, watching her to see if she was about to run off shouting ‘Escape!’. “I’m leaving.”

She looked down the hallway both ways furtively before stepping in close. I felt inexplicably fond of the other girl as she looked so concerned. “But you can’t. Negan won’t let you-”

“Negan doesn’t know.”

For some reason, she looked likely to burst into tears. “Please don’t leave.”

“I don’t belong here. Neither does Deano. I’m not like any of you. Not Negan, or Paula or Arat.”

“Negan-”

“Fuck Negan!” I swore, the words laced with venom. Tina actually drew back in shock. “Okay, I killed some of his men but I don’t owe him anything. Fuck the debt. Fuck the Saviours.”

“Dora-”

“I _can’t_ stay here. I won’t tie us down to some lunatic with a libido on steroids and a miniature army of guns ready to shoot me down.”

The other girl looked so disappointed. She made to leave but turned back.

“You do belong here. As much as anybody. More than. You’re more like Negan that you think. You just don’t see it.”

I watched her go until she disappeared around the corner. Shutting the door behind me, I sat heavily on the end of the bed, in the dark.

Two hours.

  


_You do belong here._

No.

_You’re more like Negan than you think._

I am not like him.

_Negan’s salt and pepper smirk morphing into the clean-shaven shark smile of the blonde cowboy._

Never again.

_Please don’t leave._

I looked at the clock on the wall. 11:52pm.

_Sydney’s red eyes. I want to kill you._

We needed to go.

_Give Daddy a kiss and tell him you’re sorry._

I glared at the clock. 11:58pm

_Negan laughing after he kissed me._

_Negan staring down at me, calling me Batman._

_Negan asleep on the bed, Deano in his arms._

_You’re more like Negan than you think._

  


_I own you._

As if he'd ever let us escape.

 

Sydney opened the door before I managed to know, hurrying me inside. After locking the door behind us he turned to glare at me.

“You’re late.”

I ran a hand through my hair, a few strands coming away with my fingers. I had hacked it back to the length it had been before the Turn, using a knife from the kitchen. It felt strange, the empty air where hair had been. It brushed just under my chin.

“Where’s the kid?”

“We’re not leaving.”

“What?”

I felt awful, staring at this boy-man, red eyes and desperation. “We’re staying.”

“No.” He shook his head frantically. “You said. You said you wanted to leave. I couldn’t kill you so you were going to leave.”

“Sydney-”

“I can’t believe you!” He exclaimed, and I winced, hoping no one had heard him. “What changed your mind?”

“I just-”

“It was Negan, wasn’t it?” He demanded, moving towards me menacingly. “You fucked him and now you’re going to stay and get married and live happily ever, right?”

I shook my head, hands up, trying to calm him down. “No-”

He pulled a knife from behind his back, face a twisted snarl, tears streaking his face. “Shaun died because of you. I keep seeing him, _everywhere I go_ , because of you.”

“Sydney,” I warned, keeping my eyes on his face. “Calm down.”

He lunged and I dodged, striking at the arm holding the knife. It clattered on the floor. I ran past him for the door, bursting outside, slamming it behind me. I ran back to Deano, quiet as I could.

  


Turning over on the bed, I stared up at the clock. 5:30am.

I hadn’t managed to sleep after getting back, ready for the door to open, knocked off its hinges, Sydney to appear like the Shining.

_It was Negan, wasn’t it? You fucked him and now you’re going to stay and get married and live happily ever after?_

I rubbed my forehead before pushing the covers back, slipping out of the bed. I pressed a kiss to Deano’s head, shushing him when he stirred. He fell back easily, already asleep. I stood, my nightgown swaying around my thighs before padding quietly to the door. A low woof. Samson jumped from the bed, coming to my side.

We walked to the gardens, passing the odd Sanctuary member, but no one paid us any mind. Still the leper then. I leant against the railing at the top of the stairs, watching Samson go about his business.

I wasn’t surprised by the footsteps behind me or the person they belonged to.

“Aren’t you the little early bird.”

I stared ahead as he came to lean next to me, the leather of his jacket brushing my bare shoulder. I tucked one foot against the other, the concrete cool against my bare skin.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Did it have something to do with you leaving Sydney Jackson’s room in such a hurry last night?”

I kept silent. He turned so he continued to lean on the railing, watching me instead of Samson. “Why did someone have to tell me you were in Sydney Jackson’s room last night?”

I turned to him. “Because nobody minds their own business in this place?”

He held my gaze and I sighed.”He’s still alive if that’s what you’re asking.”

“We wouldn’t be having this fucking conversation if he wasn’t.”

I shrugged, shivering slightly. The sun hid beyond the horizon, the sky beginning to light up with pinks and oranges. “He had been following me. We had a conversation. I apologised.”

“You. Apologise? I would have fucking paid to see that.” He huffed a laugh. I smiled down at Samson as he traipsed the gardens below.

He clapped me on the shoulder with a smirk. “Go to bed, Batman.”

I raised an eyebrow, my lips quirk into a small smile against my will. “If I’m Batman, what does that make you?”

He grinned, silly and genuine. I stared, inexplicably caught. “Isn’t it fucking obvious? I’m fucking Catwoman. But seriously, it’s breakfast in three hours and you’ve got a busy fucking day ahead so you should get some fucking shuteye.”

“I do?”

“You’re a Saviour, aren’t you?”

“For now.”

“Until three months are done.”

I grinned at him then. “Until three months.”


	8. Snap Out Of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when you think you know a guy...  
> AKA, Dora finds out about the feeder-communities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about being so slow on the updates. Time flies when you are sinking further into the doldrums of academia, along with all of your money.  
> Snap Out Of It - The Arctic Monkeys

 

Plenty of things changed with the Turn. The sky was brighter at night, the stars blossoming across the sky. It was quieter now, as well. No big jumbo jets flying overhead every hour. Some things, of course, hadn't changed. Like getting up after less than three hours of sleep.

I groaned, lifting myself up onto my palms, spitting hair from my mouth. Flopping onto my back, I laughed when Samson wiggled his way on top of me, wheezing under the weight.

“Knock knock knock!” yelled a voice from outside. I stuck my head up and watched, scowling as Negan let himself in.

“Do you have the keys to everyone’s rooms in the Sanctuary or just mine?”

“Wouldn't you like to know.” He winked at me, leering playfully.

Self-conscious suddenly, I slipped from the bed, heading into the bathroom with my clothes for a shower. Finally dressed, I brushed my hair out and carefully washed around my eyes and lip. I sighed at my reflection, prodding the bruises. Quickly becoming a permanent feature, apparently. Panda indeed.

I exited the bathroom to the smell of sausages sizzling. Negan stood at the stove top, Deano on the bed, dressed and playing tug-of-war with Samson. Unsure of what to do, I bustled Deano into the bathroom. When we came out, the sausages were served, plated with baked beans. A regular English Breakfast.

I smiled, fully. A smile that had always belonged solely to family, friends, and Deano. Negan looked up, confused. He had taken off his jacket. “What?”

I shrugged as I helped Deano into his chair. “Nothing, this is just what I used to have for breakfast a lot, you know, Before.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “Where did you come from anyway?”

“A long long way away. By a beach.” I sat down. I didn’t feel like elaborating. “So is this the Wife-Special? Trying to show me what I’m missing out on?”

His grin turned dirty. “You only need to ask, sugar tits, and I’ll gladly show you what you’re missing out on. But no, I don’t do this for my girls. They look like they need anymore spoiling to you?”

“Why do you do all this for us? You hate me.”

He looked pensive, a strange expression to cross his animated face. “You remind me of someone. And fuck if I don’t miss making someone breakfast every now and then.”

I helped Deano eat in silence, wondering if it was the mysterious Lucille who Negan had made breakfast for. Deano looked up then.

“You got pictures like Dora.”

“You mean my tats?” Negan asked, baring his bicep like a muscle man at a circus, flexing with a wink. A crucifix on one arm, the word _Bisou_ on his forearm. Two others hid under his shirt.

“Kiss,” I murmured.

“Pardon?”

I looked up to Negan’s eyes boring into mine. I flushed and floundered.

“Bisou, it’s, uh, French for, um, kiss.”

“Uhuh,” Negan hummed thoughtfully.

“Do yours move too?”

“What was that kid?” I breathed a sigh of relief as Negan turned his attention to Deano.

“Do they move? Like Dora’s?”

I flushed warmer. Negan shot me a look but encouraged Deano to explain.

“Dora’s got animals. They cuddle me when I’m sad. She told me they move around under her clothes.”

“Well, I would _love_ to see that,” he drawled.

I stood quickly, grabbing the plates from the table. When I leaned over to fetch Negan’s, he purposely caught my eye. The plates clattered in my shaking hands. I left Negan frowning in his seat, washing the pots as quickly as I could. I heard a chair scrape and then Negan was beside me passing me a glass.

It slipped through, wet, trembling fingers and smashed on the floor. My finger beaded with blood. When Negan bent down to help me clear it up, I shooed him away. “It’s alright, I’ll handle it. You take Deano outside. I’ll be there in a second.”

I was sucking at my finger as I met them outside, only to see Negan scowling fiercely. Utterly bewildered, I asked him, “Is everything alright?”

“I’ve made a fucking mistake. You heard me tell my boys that rape is a huge fucking no-no. When I said that, I meant that in all fucking circumstances.”

“I haven’t raped anyone.”

“I fucking know that- What I mean is- Look, I know I come on strong, but that’s just fucking me. I’ll never fucking force you or anything.”

He looked so angry and concerned, a laugh was startled out of me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”  _You couldn't force me if you tried, dickhead._

“Why the fuck were you shaking?”

I gaped, searching for the words that wouldn’t leave me absolutely mortified. “I wasn’t scared... When I shake… it’s-” I glanced at Deano, sat on the floor, Samson at his side. I steeled myself.

“Shaking means safe, still means danger.”

I breathed in deep, looking down at my boots. “Shaking means safe.”

Fingers under my chin, lifting it. Brown eyes up close. Calloused fingers traced my cheeks to my swollen eyes, tenderly circling the Dahlia purples and blues before drifting down to my fat lip. He thumbed at my lower lip, stroking the cut, feeling my the gap where my tooth had been through my cheek. His other hand dropped to my waist, sweeping under my shirt to touch the bandage wrapping the cut on my back. I felt as limp as a noodle. Caught like a fly in a web. No one had been this close to me, touching me like this… not even Before. I shivered when the bristles of his beard rubbed against my cheek.

“I make you feel safe, darling?”

“At the moment.”

“I don’t want to fucking hurt you.”

“I… understand.”

“Do you?”

I met his eyes steadily. “Not really. If you don’t want to hurt me, don’t hurt me.”

He backed up then, smiling oddly, something cold hiding in his eyes. He bent down and picked up Deano.

“Come on then, darling. You gotta fucking go to work.”

I left them at the exit, shaken and in a daze. My security was anchored in our seclusion and that intense moment of intimacy had cut me adrift. Negan smirked like he knew how lost I felt.

“And when you get back, you’re having a proper fucking haircut.”

  
  


Arat, of course, rolled her eyes as she ushered me into a van, one of a number lined up around the front. I entered it, finding Paula, a blonde man, a tall lanky type, and the two men I had attacked to escape what felt like so long ago. Almost a month now. They glared at me, hands white-knuckled at their guns.

“Put them away,” Paula snapped. “Here,” She handed me a walkie-talkie, “You got your piece on you?” I nodded, Negan had checked me for my gun and knife before I’d left, Arat tucking two extra magazines into my back pockets. I glanced around. Everyone was armed to the teeth, the blonde man cleaning a rifle in his lap.

“Where exactly,” I started slowly, “are we going?”

“Congratulations, you’ve graduated,” Paula said dryly, “Training wheels are off.”

Well, that sounded concerning.

With no windows in the back, I was stuck watching everyone else. Paula hauled herself up into the front seat with Arat, leaving me there with the three men. I lounged back, putting on an air of casual mockery. “Clive, right?”

He grunted. His friend glared. I smiled winsomely. “How’s the head?”

The friend growled. Paula barked a dry laugh from the front and the blonde man smiled. He reached out a hand. “I’m Dwight, I’ve been told you’ve already met my sister-in-law, Tina.”

I nodded, shaking his hand. He had a gaunt face, lopsided slightly like it had caved in without regular sustenance.

“You’ve already met Clive and Jason?”

“Of sorts.”

"You don't talk much do you?"

Tired of conversation, I settled back pointedly and closed my eyes. I allowed myself to be lulled by the bouncing of the van and the occasional hum of conversation. My hand stayed close around my knife.

  
  


“Look alive, Dora. We’re here.”

I shook myself awake. The van was slowing. My tummy grumbled.

We stopped. Arat and Paula jumped out. Someone opened up the back. Light streamed in and I covered my eyes. Waiting as the others jumped out, weapons in hand. As I dropped down, I felt a hand on my arm. Arat, Paula behind her.

“Follow my lead, okay? Just do as I do.”

I was pulled reluctantly into a mass semicircle of Saviours. A large colonial mansion stood proudly before us, some caravans dotted to the right along a fenceline. Some kind of creeper, an ivy of some sort, was starting to crawl up the house, no longer maintained as it once would have been. The rest was makeshift farms, without any symmetry or order. A few stalls showcasing fresh vegetables, homegrown from the look of it. People stood amidst it all, so still, they could be mistaken for waxworks if not for the heat. They stared at us, a mix of fear and hate. My skin crawled. Of course, it stood to reason to be afraid. It was only sensible when dealing with other people these days.

Paula made her way to the front. She was talking to another man, not one I recognised. He was tall, wearing a suit despite the heat and the plain impracticality of it. I strained to hear what Simon said. When I leaned forward on my toes to listen, I was yanked back by Arat with a glare. I shrugged her off, letting my eyes and mind wander.

It was definitely a contrast with the Sanctuary. So open, relatively defenceless. Weak, Compared to this the Sanctuary was a veritable fortress. The fences had no true guards, no semblance of shifts or a roster to manage a constant watch. The people loitering weren’t even carrying openly. Only a few had knives. A herd could blow right through here and leave nothing behind in the ashes.

After a while of just standing in the sun, Paula turned to us and gave a hand signal. The group began to disperse, some into the mansion, some to the caravans and the small shacks around the back. I turned to stare at Arat. She frowned, nudging me forward with the butt of her rifle. Dwight came up on my other side and together they began to herd me forward towards a lonely caravan, not yet entered by any of the others. When I hesitated outside, I was pushed up the steps and through the door.

It was plain. A bed, a table, a kitchenette of sorts. Nothing particularly impressive. Dwight moved past me and started raiding the cupboards. I gaped, disbelieving.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing? You can’t just steal their shit.”

He shot me an incredulous look over his shoulder. “Why do you think we’re here, stupid?”

I twisted to look at Arat. Her face was an expressionless mask, my silent plea for an intervention falling flat. I felt my shock subside into realization.

“I don’t understand.” The thought occurred to me suddenly like a stone in my gut. “Are you going to kill them?”

“Not if we behave,” came an unfamiliar voice. We all turned. A man, maybe thirties, long brown hair hanging past his shoulders, a well-groomed beard partially hiding a bitter smile. “That’s how you guys work, right?”

Arat stood straighter, pulling her rifle up a little. “Back off, hippie.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “What, you kill people just for talking now?”

She sneered, dark and ugly. “I’ve killed for less.”

His face was stony. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, feeling more than a little nauseous.

“She seriously doesn’t know?” the man laughed, turning to look at me. “Your people are thieves, psychopaths. Murderers.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Arat snarled shoving the man outside with a jab of the rival. “Hold your tongue if you don’t want to lose it. See if you keep your hairbrush this time.”

I staggered to lean heavily against the table. I felt like the rug had been pulled from under me. Everything the Sanctuary was. I had been living in luxury, only to find out the enchanted castle had been built on top of a slave plantation, a concentration camp.

“Dora-”

I flew out the door, spinning when faced with the mass of movement around me. Four men carrying a couch. A line of Saviours carrying crates of vegetables. Someone passed me carrying a classical portrait, presumably from the big house. Paula stood in the middle of it with a Latino man and the man in the suit. I strode towards her, grabbing her arm and pulling her in close.

“What is going on here?” I whispered to Paula through gritted teeth.

“Shut the fuck up, Dora,” she snapped back just as quiet, giving me a shove back. I refused to give in, following her as she marched off.

“Why are we taking their stuff?”

“This ain’t their stuff anymore. It belongs to Negan now.”

A mattress. Two tiki torches. “Do we even need any of this crap?”

“That’s not the fucking point.”

“Then what the hell is?” I demanded, jaw clenched.

Paula just scowled at me, then saw all the people watching us. The long haired man from before leaning against part of the fence nearby, biting into an apple.

“Look,” she pulled me aside, behind a van, out of sight and hearing, “How do you think we manage to keep such a large community afloat? All that shit just popped out of the ground? How stupid are you?”

“So you steal from these people…”

She laughed in my face, cutting me off. She looked mean suddenly, determined to draw blood. “You think this is the only community we collect from?”

“There are others?” My head spun.

“Of course there are fucking others. Shit, only Negan, knows all of them, maybe Simon.”

I had to brace myself against the van, breath short. Laughter was ringing in my ears.

_Of course. Of fucking course…_

“Negan, he-”

“Negan?” I flinched under her ridicule, her voice even more grating, laced with scorn and venom. “How fucking naive are you? _Negan._ Negan masterminded this. It was all his fucking idea. And you know what? It’s _genius_.”

“I bet he had you all under his spell, didn’t he? He took you in, he kept you, even when you kept fucking up. He’s been looking after your brat, making you breakfast, _kissing your cunt,_ no doubt. All the while he’s been fucking every other sorry fucker within 20 miles right up the ass and forcing them to thank him for it.”

I gasped. My hand at my throat. I felt the urge to strangle someone. Paula, Negan, myself. I was such a fool. _Stupid, stupid little girl._ I fell for it. All over again. So willing to believe. So prepared to ignore. Just another snakes nest. My vision blurred, perhaps with tears; I couldn’t really tell. My face was numb.

“Negan isn’t your Prince Charming. He’s the big bad wolf and you’re just another little girl, lost in the woods. Now, you get back out there, and you do your job. Or there will be hell to pay.”

She left me there. Standing weakly, legs feeling like they were in danger of giving out. A shark smile flashed behind my eyes. Blonde hair. Empty eyes.

“Welcome to the Hilltop, I guess.” The man with the long hair. His voice was dry as he sauntered to join me. “Name’s Jesus.”

“Dora,” I croaked.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“You’re just the first person to have given me your actual name.”

“What?”

“Everyone else just calls themselves Negan.”

My stomach sank.

“I hear it’s your first time.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked, not even sure if there was any answer that would be preferable.

He shrugged, his complacency belied by a tension in his wiry frame, like an animal. Fight or flight. “A month. Maybe two. Maybe three. Who keeps count these days?”

“They just showed up?”

“Yeah,” he nodded along, staring at me, “Guy in a leather jacket with a baseball bat. He shows up with maybe 30, 40 men. Gives a huge spiel. I want half your shit and all that.” His face dropped then, down into melancholy, as easily as one with practice. “My partner, he tried to stand up to them. Guy killed him. Brutally.”

“How?” I whispered, looking down at my hands.

“The bat. It has a name…”

“Lucille.”

“Yeah.” He eyed me oddly but managed to recover some of his previous blasé attitude. “So I guess you’re going to have to get used to this. You must be pretty high up, the company you keep.”

I shook my head desperately, furious at myself. I had bungled my one plan of escape, making an enemy of the only person who would help me do it. Negan had threatened death for any more deviances.

“Hey?” I looked up. He was concerned, sad about something.

“Your face? Did they do that?”

Startled, I touched the bruise at my eye. I kept forgetting about them. Like badges. A marker. I didn’t answer him. I didn’t need to.

“Well, you’d best get back before they miss you.”

I nearly laughed. However, I nodded, pushing myself off the side of the van, leaving Jesus behind. By the looks, the collection was over. Paula was back talking to the man in the suit, giving him a stern look and waving for the rest of the Saviours to disband. Numbly, I got in the van. Paula and Arat ignored me as they got in the front and I likewise ignored Clive and Jason’s glares. Dwight only looked sympathetic, though mostly pitying. I ignored them all, staring down at my hands, wondering when they would ever end up truly clean.

  
  


Negan stood, waiting as normal. He ignored the majority of the Saviours, stopping Paula for a short conversation. Looks were sent my way and I pointedly looked away, before marching towards the Sanctuary. I was almost there when a hand clamped down on my shoulder, painfully.

Jason. Clive behind him. Hate made them ugly.

“You better watch out girlie,” he snarled in a whisper. I shoved him off, surprising him with my strength.

“Or what? Going to kill me?” I asked, leaning in. “You can try.”

“Hey now. This better a fucking friendly conversation.”

I tensed with the men as Negan sauntered up and I honestly couldn’t tell who felt the most uncomfortable. He refrained from his usual physical greeting. When he met my eyes, I saw nothing in them.

“Of course Negan. We were just… leaving.”

“I thought you were.”

He turned to me as they passed. I refused to let him have the first word.

“You steal from other communities.”

He rolled his eyes, swinging Lucille up to his shoulder. “They’re more like long term investments.”

“Do you kill them after?”

He folded his arm and smiled without emotion. “That’s just fucking counter-intuitive. We get weekly supply trips with each of our communities. And that keeps us alive.”

My hands were shaking but from fury and frustration.

“The stuff you take, it’s not even practical. Why the hell do you need a painting anyway? You take it for cruelty’s sake, not even because you need it.”

“God fucking damn.” He swayed back onto his heels. Teeth bared, stretching his salt and pepper beard into a disbelieving snarl. “You are a fucking piece of work, aren’t you? You gave my girls hell but what world are you living in? This isn’t fucking Disney channel. I told you, what’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine. You want to fucking survive in this shitshow, you take; you don’t share, you don’t give, you don’t fucking ask. It’s a dog eat fucking dog world.”

“You’re a psychopath,” I spat at him. Everything was churning inside me, like a vat of boiling liquids. Resentment, disgust, shame.

“Now, what have I told you about going around hurting my fucking feelings? Don’t fucking do it,” he warned, voice low as he came like skulking panther into my personal space. “I told you, one more chance. Do not fucking cross me.”

He was too close, too angry. All I could see was white teeth. Too close.

I swung out my fist.

He caught it before it made contact. His grip around my wrist tightened unbearably, squeezing the bones. Ready to break them.

Eyes were on us. Breaths were held. Waiting. Anticipating. Would he bring Lucille into this? Or just use his hands?

He pulled me in even closer, mouth at my ear. "You ever fucking try that again, you'll never see that kid of yours again."

He walked off then, the threat saturating the air that had surrounded us. I choked on it. It was happening all over again. Why was I such a fool?

I stared up at the cold grey walls of the Sanctuary, looming over me.

It felt more like a prison than ever.


	9. I'll Be Seeing You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora goes on a run and is left stranded. Naturally, she ponders her circumstances, her past, and her future.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of rape and miscarriage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is truly unforgivable how long I have left you waiting for the next chapter. I will try my hardest to do better in the future. Enjoy.
> 
> I'll Be Seeing You - Tommy Dorsey

 

I ran, feet pounding down into the earth, echoing my heartbeat. My panting breath, drowned out by the clamouring growls and snarls, dead jaws chomping at my ankles.

A root protruding from the dry earth. My foot caught. I fell.

The world blurred. I hadn’t drunk anything since that morning before. Tearing pain ripped through my leg. I yelped, kicking out as fingernails raked my calf. Scrambling to my feet, I swung my axe. The walker fell, forehead caved in. The axe refused to come out. I left it, staggering forward once more.

A road. Finally.

My body felt heavy, sluggish, as I struggled, half jogging, half limping up the crest of the hill. The weight of the heat in the air pressed down on my shoulders and dampened the fabric at collar and back. The hair crowning my forehead curled in the humidity.

I turned to glance behind me. Deafening noise. An endless crowd of decay. The herd was almost on me. The noise brought some walkers out from the nearby buildings.

And there upon the very crown of the hill was my salvation. The skeleton of a church, charred and burnt, the outer walls and steeple still intact, the roof caved in. Nothing was sacred these days. Hysteria forced a laugh out of my parched throat. It came out more like a croak. I lengthened my disjointed stride, stumbling to the side to dodge a walker I hadn’t spotted.

The wound on my calf stung with every movement, and I felt my blood oozing. I gritted my teeth, finally reaching my last hope. I threw myself inside the church, slamming the doors shut behind me. I spun and searched for anything to hold the door. I ended up shoving an umbrella through the handles. I had just heaved the last bench into the pile in front of the door when the door was suddenly pressed forward. The entire church groaned in protest as the weight of the walkers laid heavy on the already weak wood.

I scrambled through the shell of a temple, limping up the stairs of the steeple. Finally, I reached the top, shutting the final door behind me. I staggered to a stop. Dark clouds unravelled across blue skies above me, the roof and walls of the tower collapsed some time ago. A fat droplet of rain splashed against my nose before more joined in the race towards the earth. I fell to my knees and crawled weakly to where the floorboards stopped. Vertigo rushed through my stomach and I shook, staring down at the mass of walkers.

Dead end.

 

 

I had been sent out on a run. Reluctantly, of course. I wasn’t allowed to see Deano before I left. Negan’s punishments were strange, like a parent that swung dramatically between the weight of their hands and taking away a favourite toy. I was ignored by Paula and Arat when I showed up for my assignment. The blonde man, Dwight avoided my eyes, likely ashamed. Negan was also noticeably absent from his usual spot at the railing.

A meaty fist hit my shoulder. I gritted my teeth turning to look into the gleaming eyes of Clive and Jason. They grinned nastily.

“You’re with us today.”

I stared at them. Maybe Negan had changed his mind about wanting me alive in the end. Dryly, I replied, “Joy.”

Faces falling, perhaps sensing my mockery, they shoved me towards the van. Two others I wasn’t familiar with followed after. I looked over my shoulder. Arat and Paula had already driven away.

Well, if this was my execution, I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

 

 

We drove west, in great winding loops. I glared at the headrests in front of me. How stupid did they think I was? To not notice our convoluted route or their stupid sly grins across gear stick. I was pressed against the window, the two strange males next to me. They were typical Saviours, I guessed. Beefy, smelly, willing to bludgeon any random someone told them to. I cranked the window slightly to escape the odour.

Clive and Jason exchanged another look.

“Jesus fucking Christ, would you two just make out already? The tension is killing me.” I drawled sarcastically. One of the men next to me chuckled. Up in front, Clive and Jason looked ready to kill. Excellent.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Jason snarled back at me. I took my time, miming wiping the spit from my face.

“So how long is this going to take exactly? I might suffocate soon and you wouldn’t want that now would you?” I taunted. The two of them were practically vibrating with rage which would only work in my favour. One of the men beside me reached forward and hit the back of Clive’s headrest, making the car jerk for a moment. “Let’s hurry this the fuck up.”

Eventually, we pulled up to an old supermarket. It looked ransacked but the two strangers headed in easily enough. Huh, maybe they weren’t in on it like I had assumed. I wasn’t shocked when a fat hand covered my mouth and dragged me off the road. They threw my knife away, and my gun too. I didn’t struggle, biding my time until we had gotten a good distance away.

Suddenly, I kicked out, wriggling like a freshwater eel until they dropped me. Surging up, I punched Jason in the gut, only to get knocked down by Clive from behind. He unsheathed his axe, grinning down at me, when his mouth contorted into a scream, blood spurting from his neck and onto my face from where a walker tore ravenously. Behind him, I saw dozens more breaching the horizon.

A herd.

Behind me, Jason fumbled with his shotgun, dropping shells. I scrambled up, trying to stop him. We tussled briefly before he knocked me on my ass. He loaded one and spun to aim the gun at me. I rolled as he fired, the crack deafening. Stumbling, I shoved past him, grabbing Clive’s axe and sprinting for the car. I heard a cry from behind me. Jason had fallen under three walkers. The shotgun had drawn more in my direction. I rounded the corner, waving my arms above my head as I saw the car driving towards me.

“Herd! Herd!” I shouted, slowing as it drew closer. But it passed. I screamed in frustration and anger. Turning, I was faced with at least fifty walkers, not far behind me. Axe in hand and bag on back, I started to run.

I ran for miles before I lost them. I was sweating buckets, sluggish under the weight of my pack. The asphalt burned through the soles of my shoes, heat pressing against me from above and below. I thought of Deano, all those times we would sit at night in the little cabin, curled up in the dark. His wide eyes as I whispered to him stories my father had told me. I pressed on.

It was dark when I stopped. I had to have made it about ten miles. My legs wobbled under me, and my head pounded with my feet were still beating their rhythm on the road. I was in a small neighbourhood. Quaint and empty. It could even be the one I first came across Clive and Jason in before I met Negan. Before, I’d thought I could divide my life into two sections: before the Turn, and after. Now, it was seeming more and more like my life would only ever be after the Turn, Before a distant dream. Now I was left with before and after Negan.

I found myself inside one of the houses without really paying much attention to how I got there and how many walkers I took out along the way. I made my way through the house, searching for supplies. Without water, my throat was dry and sore, but I made do with a tin of wet dog food. It still wasn’t the worst thing I’d eaten, though the priveledges of the Sanctuary meant I hadn't had to stoop this low in a while.

I was passing the bathroom when I saw my reflection. I felt like an absurdist recreation of a dolled up woman, eyes smokey with bruises, cheeks flushed with sunburn, and lips red with blood. It was the last thing I saw before I fainted.

 

 

I woke up to nausea and an even worse headache. I was sprawled on the tiled floor of the bathroom. My limbs were reluctant to move as I struggled to push myself up. My stomach rolled sickeningly, as the smell of vomit and blood made itself known. I must have vomited there in my sleep. My fingers wandered to my head and I felt crusted blood before a sharp penetrating pain. Concussion.

Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet. The world spun around me and my brain slowly churned through ideas. I was in no state to go on a run or defend myself against walkers or strangers. I didn’t even know how long I’d been out for. It was light outside. It could have been hours or days. I wondered what Negan had told Deano when I hadn’t returned with the others. Then it occurred to me.

It was a long trek. I didn’t have a toddler to carry this time, but my body was burden enough in this state. At night I couldn’t even climb the trees for defence, and I couldn’t trust myself to be able to wake up at any sound of danger without Samson there so I would sit and rest, but I did not sleep.

It took me two days to reach our cabin and another to find it. But then, there I was, standing before it like Samson was just about to follow me out of the undergrowth. I opened the door with my eyes closed, pretending. But no weight flung itself against my shins. No little arms tugged my belt to be lifted up. I was greeted with silence and an empty shack with nothing left of what we had called home for that short time. Well, not entirely nothing, I contemplated, looking up at all the pictures I had pinned up of Deano’s. Of large scribbled interpretations of dogs, and red-haired girls and little curly haired boys. I reached forward now, fingertips brushing against the thick crayon, a heat behind my eyes. Would I ever see him again?

I supposed the real question was would Negan let me back? Would he have punished the others, when they returned the others, or would he have congratulated them? For some reason most unbeknownst to me, even if he celebrated in my presumed death, I knew he would look after Deano. Or at least pass him on to someone like Tina, or maybe one of his wives. Someone who could care for him, raise him. Probably better than I could have.

What could I have given him anyway? More death, more blood, more walkers. Apparently, that was all I was good for. Because who was I kidding, I couldn’t make Sanctuary and the Saviours work. I had no idea of how to live in any kind of society anymore. I wasn’t fit for human interaction, let alone parenthood.

 _But he’s yours_ , a voice whispered, _You found him, You looked after him._

But they have taken him from me.

_People have tried to take Deano from you before, and we know what happened to them._

The cannibals at the house, dead at my hands. The blonde cowboy, blue eyes and shark grin.

Adam had been his name. Adam Love. A beautiful name for a beautiful man.

I was just as stupid now as I was then. Deano would thrive without me. The number of times I had lost him…

_But always found…_

He had been so charming, Adam Love, whisking us away from the barn. Leading us up to an old retirement village and calling it home.

More like a prison.

He had cradled me, washed me, dried my tears. He even showed me how to properly look after Deano. So patient and kind. I never even noticed the distinct ratio of men to women. All the girls heavy with child, so dangerous in this world. Then one morning I woke and Deano wasn’t in his crib. I ran to Adam and he had soothed me with kisses. He heard him crying. He had taken him for a walk. One of the women had him now. And then he swept me away, keeping my head in the clouds with declarations of love, how he was so glad he had found me. How he wished he could marry me.

That night he took me to his bed.

Neither Deano or I returned to my room.

I started to lose sleep. Samson hadn’t been allowed inside the village and spent most nights howling for me, and for Deano. It was a month before I noticed my periods had stopped.

Adam’s eyes gleamed when I told him. He placed both hands and kiss to my belly, whispering _my little soldier_.

Then I lost the child.

I had never known a grief like that.

Adam grew distant, and I began craving having Deano back in my arms. I demanded to see him. Adam refused. He told me of his great plan. To build a new society of his own brood. How I had failed this time, but I would not fail again. He ignored my refusal. The following day I sought escape from some of the women. They told Adam. I bore the brunt of his anger.

That night, I slipped naked from his bed and doused it with petrol as he lay in it.

The flames drew walkers from miles around but by that time, I was far away with Deano in my arms and Samson at my side.

_You can’t leave him with a man like Negan._

But how was Negan truly any worse than me. I too, killed without mercy and with only my own justice in mind. I had stolen from others to survive, to keep Deano alive, just as Negan was now.

_But that was different._

Was it really? He does it for his people, just as I did it for Deano. Sure, he was a psychopath but he wouldn’t hurt those he promised to protect.

_He hurt you. He hurts others. And he enjoys it._

I couldn’t deny that. Nor could I excuse it. But could I live with it? To stay with Deano and keep him safe, there we worst prices to pay. Morality is a cheap thing these days anyway.

 

 

 

I slept on my old mattress that night, ignoring my last memory of it, remembering every other. An emptiness I had ignored for over a year pervaded my mind, keeping me from sleep. I lay still for hours, a lull in the feeling.

Some of our supplies I had left in our hurry to leave. Bandages for one, fresh for my back and around my head. A measly bottle of water, half empty, every drop savoured. And a little toy wolf, discarded in the corner.

If my mind had not already been made up, it was then.

I set out the next day for Sanctuary.

Too bad I ran into another herd on the way.

 

 

And so I lay there, at the top of that church, staring into the rain, a fluffy toy wolf clutched to my chest. Thirst tormented me, even as I caught water on my outstretched tongue. I imagined footsteps as the boards on which I lay, creaked. Deano, crawling across to me, giggling as he hummed one of our lullabies. Suddenly he stopped and I watched as he rotted before my eyes until all that remained was the walker left behind. I sucked in a choked breath, tears mingling with rain as the sob escaped me. As quickly as he came, he melted in the rain.

Thunder crashed overhead, briefly drowning out the sounds of the walkers below. Warm breath puffed across my ear and I turned to see Adam’s face, blue eyes soft as he rubbed a phantom hand across my belly. My heart churned with adoration, then terror as that hand began to press down, unbearably hard. I cried out.

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

Then I looked down and between my legs all I saw was red. All I felt was hollow and empty. _Where’s the baby?_ _Please, save my baby._

Was this my trial? My cross to bear? Here I lay with all my demons out to taunt me. Next to me, Adam set alight, flames dancing across his skin even as he touched me.

Lightning streaked across the sky, blinding me, and then Adam and the blood were gone leaving only…

“Hey, sugar tits.”

Negan. His typical smirk, still dressed in leather, hair somehow impervious to the rain that I was drowning in. I gasped, reaching for him, desperate for relief, for salvation. There he crouched, looking down at me as he always did, eyes dark with a humour I couldn’t begin to comprehend. I stared at him, gaping. Where was Lucille? How had he found me?

But then he sat down next to me, brushing a cold imaginary hand across my forehead. I closed my eyes as more tears escaped, tangling with my eyelashes. He wasn’t here, none of them were. Not Deano, not Adam, not my baby, not Negan.

_I could leave. No one would know. No one would hate me for it. They think I’m dead._

“Don’t be such a fucking pussy.”

I looked up at Negan. His smirk was gone, his dark eyes serious. His gloved hand seemed to linger on my bruises and I closed my eyes, relishing the touch, mirage though it was.

“I don’t know how to be around people anymore,” I whispered into the air.

“That’s what I’m here for sugar tits. We’ll just be two psychopaths stirring up shit with each other until one of us kills the other.”

“I am crazy,” I agreed.

“You’re talking to me, aren’t you?” He replied, voice dry.

I sighed. The sound of the walkers was fading now.

“You’re going to come back.”

“I’m not going to marry you. I can’t…”

He smirks down at me then. “You think I don’t already fucking know that?”

“Then why do you want me around? What good am I? I just fuck everything up.”

“That’s for the real me to tell you. And don’t you know me well enough by now to realise I _like_ things fucking up?”

With one last smirk, he was gone. I blinked back my last tear and fell asleep in the rain.

My dreams were peaceful for once, undisturbed by crying children or the heat of flames. Instead, I dreamt of a beach, white sand beneath my toes and the taste of salt in the air. Laughter still ringing in my ears even as I woke.

 

 

Even the full strength of the sun could not warm my bones as I laboured along the highway towards Sanctuary. My limbs were stiff with fatigue and cold, my mind addled by the sun and thirst. My calf had stopped bleeding during the night, though I worried over an infection. Not to mention the scar up my back, bursting aflame with every staggering step.

I was limping down a little high street of shops when I heard them. Him.

“Negan, this is the fifth place we’ve looked. We can’t keep searching for her…”

“I’m sorry, Dwight, but were you fucking trying to tell me what to do?”

I turned a corner and there he was. Black leather, a baseball bat. I opened my mouth to call him but all that came out was a croak. I cleared my throat, wincing at the awful scratching feeling. Dwight looked up then, and even from the distance, I could see the way his eyes widened before he turned to Negan. Then Negan turned. I stumbled and fell. I closed my eyes as the blackness came for me once more and it was Negan’s cusses that accompanied me into the abyss.

 

 

Later, they would say I was lucky to keep my leg and even more lucky to have survived my concussion. They told me it had been four days since I left that morning. They hooked me up to an IV and rubbed aloe vera over my burning skin. When I was finally lucid, Tina brought Deano in to see me. As soon as they entered the room, Deano fought his way out of her arms and onto my bed. He clung to me tighter than he had in weeks and cried like he used to when he was just a tiny babe, fiercely, without any understanding of what had transpired. When everyone left but him, I cried too, shaking uncontrollably in his tiny arms.

That night, we slept together in my little hospital bed and I sang him his song, rocking him to sleep, pressing kisses and whispers into his curls.

_“I’m here, I’m here.”_

And if I looked up at the figure shadowed in the seat by the bed, asleep, no one but I would know.


	10. Honey Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Negan looks after Dora as she recovers. AKA Dora gets pampered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honey Bones - DOPE LEMON

 

“Dora.”

I huffed, nuzzling my chin deeper into soft curls. My eyes stayed firmly squeezed shut. The warmth I curled my body around squirmed in my arms.

“Dooora.” A small finger prodded my face.

Feeling inexplicably childish, I rolled, ignoring the twinge, bringing Deano under me. He squealed as he wiggled in vain.

“Dora, stooop!”

“Stop what?” I asked, pausing in faux thought. “This?” And I swooped down to blow a big wet raspberry on his cheek. His screams of laughter made me wince even as I grinned.

“Dooora!”

“This is why you let grownups sleep, Deano.” I flopped gently on top of him, shoving my face into his neck. He smelt of baby and sleep and the lemon shampoo we kept in our shower.

“But Dora, I’m hungry.”

“Hi hungry, I’m Dora.”

“Dora.”

“You know what, I’m kind of hungry too.” And I rolled us again, this time so I was on my back holding Deano above me, gnashing my teeth playfully to Deano’s shrieks. My head throbbed and my whole body protested but I ignored them for this moment.

The door to the infirmary opened and as I turned to see who had entered, the scar on my back pulled painfully. My arms slackened but before Deano could fall, two arms swooped in and plucked him from my hands.

“Pretty fucking sure you’re supposed to be on bed rest, sugar tits.”

And there he was.  My demon, my master, all that jazz. Always finding a way to interrupt or intrude. Constantly reasserting his presence in everyone else’s lives. Like we didn’t have enough to deal with already.

I had to admit though, he was by no means bad company. I just don’t think you could ever call him good.

Samson pushed through the crack in the door and jumped up to lie down next to me on my bed. I ran a hand through his fur absentmindedly.

“What are you talking about? I’m right as rain,” I singsonged back to him, a sarcastic smile plastered across my lips. He looked distinctly unimpressed and reacted by reaching across and rapping my forehead with his knuckles.

“Jesus- _ow_ ,” I snapped, batting away the hand, rubbing my forehead. Fucking hurt. “Leave off, will you.”

Negan hummed and bounced Deano, apparently satisfied having proven his point. I sighed. Throwing myself back against the pillow, I winced as I landed causing Negan to roll his eyes at me, then again at Deano in an even more exaggerated fashion, who only giggled. Feeling that ache behind my eyes, I pulled my pillow to cover my face. A weight sank into the mattress by my knees. I shuffled to pull the covers further up my body, conscious of the rather revealing gown I had been manhandled into.

“Well, seeing as you’re not doing anything, I fucking figured, let’s get that little brain of yours working for once.”

I moved the pillow to glare at him but he merely grinned, completely unrepentant.

“Don’t go pulling that face around here, Little Miss Dora. You’re the one with the fucking concussion. Therefore, you get desk duty. That means you’re gonna be helping me out.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that?” I asked dryly, gesturing to our surroundings, and my sheets tucked so tight it was like I was being bound to the bed. “Bed rest, remember?”

His grin turned downright mischievous.”I think we can manage that.”

  


“This,” I said weakly, “was a terrible idea.”

Negan swore, jostling me painfully, and my head almost cracked open, that was how fragile and tender I felt. Deano ran ahead of us laughing, Samson trailing him dutifully. Meanwhile, I clung to Negan desperately as he carried me, bad leg and all, up the stairwell.

“Are there no elevators in this building, seriously?”

“Stop fucking talking. You’re making this worse.”

“How am I making this worse?”

“Stop fucking breathing. All that air, just making you heavier.”

I turned my face into the collar of his jacket to hide my smirk. “Are you calling me fat?”

He grunted as he cleared the last step, turning into a hallway. “If the shoe fits.”

He grunted again when I hit him and retaliated by ‘accidentally’ bumping my leg into the wall. I swore as the pain lanced up my heavily bandaged leg. My vision whited. Fucking bastard.

I hid again in his collar, avoiding that smug smirk. The faint smell of his cologne lingered and as subtly as I could, I breathed it in, savouring the clean scent. Negan shifted his hold on me and then my nose was pressed into the skin of his neck, the line where his scruff began. I stiffened. Negan chuckled, jostling me again, more playfully.

“Smell good, princess?”

I scowled. His gait slowed and I turned to face forward, lips brushing his Adam's apple as I turned. He hummed low in approval, his hand holding my hip squeezing. My face flushed at my accidental foray in sensual touching. I shook the feeling off, watching Deano and Samson come to a stop in front of a door.

My scowl devolved into a frown as I failed to recognise where we were. “That isn’t my room.”

“No, it is not,” Negan agreed readily. “Fetch my keys out of my pocket, would’ya, gorgeous?”

After a hasty pat down, and a downright lecherous grin, and a few minutes of fumbling, we were inside the room. It was admittedly… rather grand. Grander than anything I’d lived in Before, and certainly more so than everything following. I was laid down on a four-poster bed with a surprising amount of care. Negan said something about breakfast before walking out, Deano in tow. Samson stayed behind, apparently knowing this bed wasn’t to be jumped on, instead settling on the leather couch. I looked around from my perch against fully fluffed pillows. There was a potted fern, shelves of fancy ornaments, vases, and ornate lamps. I knew the room had to be Negan’s; no one else would be allowed such opulence. And yet, it was hard to reconcile it with what I knew of him. But then, maybe it was a statement. Only he was allowed to live luxuriously. He was the provider. He got to reap the benefits. I fingered the sheets I lay on, before finding the label. Egyptian cotton. Yeah, definitely a statement. I shuddered at the thought of how many women he had brought to his bed.

“Breakfast in bed. Don’t say I don’t spoil you, princess.”

We ate in relative silence, Deano curling into my side for a nap after he had finished filling himself off my plate. Negan sat on the couch, letting Samson rest his head on his lap as he pulled out a thick leather notebook. I put my empty plate on the bedside table, shifting restlessly on the silky covers. Finally, it brought Negan’s attention.

He looked up, a face of exasperation. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He frowned. “Well, that’s fucking bull.”

“Why did you bring me to your bedroom?” I blurted out, blushing instantly as his eyes grew curious and amused.

“Worried I brought you here to seduce your prudish, vulnerable self?”

I bristled, waving away that yes, that had been exactly what I was thinking. “I just don’t exactly like being on your sex bed.”

His eyes laughed at me but his face was unusually expressionless. “My wives don’t come here.” He winked then, breaking his serious demeanour. “In either way.”

Slightly shocked, I tried to hide it. “Why not?”

He shrugged then and looked away, obviously tired of the subject. “Man needs a sanctuary to retreat to after he’s got his dick wet.”

I scoffed, disgusted at his typical response.

“Look, now you’re safe knowing that I’m not going to steal your panties while you’re not looking, you mind being fucking quiet?”

Grumbling, I rolled over gingerly, facing away from him and curling around Deano once more. Might as well close my eyes for a bit, I thought, muffling a yawn. Slipping off slowly, I tried to ignore the blanket that was draped over my body. I was too far gone by then to say anything anyway.

  
  


I woke to a splinter of light cutting across my eyes. Blinking, I shifted out of its beam. It took me a moment to come around, the unfamiliar surroundings throwing me off. I sat up, turning to look at the couch. There Negan was still sat, though he had taken off his custom red bandana and leather jacket. It made him look almost naked, illuminated in the glow penetrating his heavy curtains, fingers running through greased hair as he concentrated on his notebook. I watched, mesmerised.

Perhaps feeling my eyes on him, he turned, raising an expectant brow. “Afternoon, sleeping beauty. And here I didn’t even get to kiss you.”

I rolled my eyes, clearing my throat, probably rather conspicuously blushing. Why was I doing that so much? Surely I wasn’t letting Negan have such an effect on me? I broke our staring contest, looking down at the rumpled blanket I was sure I had imagined, empty next to me. “Where’s Deano and Samson?”

“Figured just ‘cause we have to stay here, didn’t mean they had to. Tina’s got them until tomorrow. She could do with some extra points right now. Anyway, you’ll probably do better without Deano all over you.” His pointed look made me refrain from protesting, settling with a dissatisfied frown. I didn’t really want to be away from Deano right now but then I still might be in Negan’s bad books. I had to remind myself to play nice.

In the end, I decided on asking, “You said you wanted me to help you out with something?”

He didn’t even look over. I called his name to get his attention. His frustration was clear now. “What?”

“What can I do?  
“What you’re already doing,” he retorted sarcastically, “Inspiring your beloved leader.” At my silence, he put on an exaggerated face of shock. “What? No mutters of treason?”

I made an effort to look suitably chastised and remorseful. “You looked after Deano while I was gone. Figured it’s only fair to help out.”

He looked thoughtful as he fixed his stare on me. I grew warm under his eyes, uncomfortable with the amount of focus he had, for a man that never seemed to stay still. Was this how a deer felt, in the face of a wolf?

“Fine.” He stood, wandering over to a table. I swayed, free from his hold. “We’ve had an influx of new recruits lately.” When I snorted at that, he shot me a warning look. “I’ve got some profiles here set up by Simon but I have yet to assign them jobs. I want you to look through them and do it for me.”

I gaped. “That’s pretty important…”

He shrugged, holding a clipboard full of paper as he stood over where I lay. “If you can’t handle it…”

I snatched the clipboard out of his hands. “I didn’t say that.”

He smirked down at me. “Good.”

Muttering under my breath, I set to work, flicking through pages, writing notes. It reminded me oddly of my time at university. I hadn’t done paperwork in what felt like decades. After a while, I began to miss my glasses as my head began to ache once more. I had completed fifteen assignments when my eyes began to weigh heavy again. I’ll just close my eyes for a second, I thought sleepily.

  
  


“Wakey, wakey, Dora.”

I hummed, batting at the hand shaking my shoulder.

“Come on, gorgeous, you need to get up.”

I breathed in and the mouthwatering smell of a roast meal got my attention, dragging me out of my sleep. I slowly unfolded, avoiding Negan’s amused eyes as I moved on instinct towards the tray of hot food in Negan’s hands. He shoved me back gently as I made to get up.

“Ah-ah, bed rest, remember.”

“I can feed myself.”

“My room, my rules. Now, open up.”

And so, I found myself lying back on Negan’s bed, as he sat beside me and fed me pieces of chicken and roast potato. A more bizarre and tense scenario, I couldn’t imagine. Especially when he caught my bewildered eyes with his own, dark and heavy. My stomach roiled dangerously, and not from hunger. When he wiped my mouth with a napkin and lingered on my lower lip, I swallowed, eyes wide, nervous.

“Why am I here?  Why didn’t you take me to my room? I’d be just as comfortable there.” I tried.

He shrugged, casual as ever, eyes intent. “If I’m going to be keeping an eye on you, I’m doing it my way.”

“But you don’t need to. I’d be fine,” I insisted.

He gave me a look. “You had a concussion, Dora. You know the rules.”

Unable to argue with that, I looked over to the windows. No light came in through the curtains now.

“I checked in on Deano. Tina is looking after him.” Negan stood and my eyes couldn’t help but follow him. Reaching down, he ran a hand through my hair. He hummed thoughtfully.

“They may have wiped you down but you haven’t had a proper wash in days. I’ll run the bath.”

And then he was gone. I fidgeted alone. _A bath? Was he going to… Would he…_

_No. I mean, surely not._

_He said he wouldn’t._

But then something warmed unfurled inside my stomach and I squirmed. _Would it really be so unwelcome? Come on, no one has touched you since Adam._

Immediately I stomped down on that thought. _No. Not going to happen._

“Come on, Princess.” My head snapped up. Negan bent down scooping me up, before carrying me through into his ensuite. Despite the glamorous nature of his bedroom, there was little that could be done to a bathroom. A toilet, a sink, cabinets. But differing from my own, a deep bath, steam rising from it, bubbles across the surface with a pink tinge and a faint fragrance.

“Is that a bath bomb?” I asked incredulously, torn from my frenzied thoughts momentarily. Looking up at Negan’s face I was even more shocked to see a faint blush. He quickly brushed off my adulation at his embarrassment, dropping my bare feet in the hot water quicker than I would have liked. I hissed at the sudden change in temperature, but none the less, attempted to stand by myself. Maybe this was it, I thought with hope. Maybe he would leave me to sort myself out.

That thought vanished as quickly as it came as my head swam from being upright after a day in bed. Negan quickly grabbed my shoulders again, keeping me standing. My hands flew out to brace myself on his arms.

“Come on, gorgeous,” he crooned lowly, “Let’s get you sorted.”

Hot shame ran through me as I let him lower me into the water, keeping my bandaged leg propped up on the side to avoid the bandages getting wet. Fortunately, I did not have to worry the same of my back, the bandages having been removed in the infirmary while I was unconscious. Still, the scar was tender under the heat of the water. Finally seated, the white fabric of my nightgown darkened as it was submerged. Unable to convince Negan otherwise, I was forced to sit still with my arms over my head as he reached into the water and pulled my sodden nightgown over my head. Curling into myself, I held back the threatening tears. Silence reigned until Negan finally broke it, saying, “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Suddenly I was alone, and still reeling from the swarm of emotions that had descended upon me in my anguish. One quickly rose above the others and I realised it was gratitude. Brushing away tears, I set about washing with the cloth Negan had left. I hadn’t had a bath in… I don’t know how long. The fragrance, I realised, was rose water. I cupped some of the pink bubbles in my hand, brought back to old memories of baths with my sisters, smearing bubbles across each other's faces. Sniffling, I patted them across my cheeks, creating a beard that was typical of my childhood baths. After playing some more, I reached back to untie my hair but sound rushed in my ears and I had to stop. I clenched my fists under the water. Would I… Yes.

“Negan?” I called softly, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear me.

The door to the bathroom creaked open, but he didn’t come in. “You done?”

“Not exactly.”

He came in then, almost hesitant. I faced away from him but met his eyes over my shoulder.

“Could you help me wash my hair?”

  


“Lean forward for me, gorgeous.”

As I submerged my head under the bath water, I contemplated the unprecedented gentility Negan was exhibiting. I had to admit, I was silently preening under the attention. Strong fingers combed through my short locks under the water, before gently tugging me back upright, stroking my wet hair back from my face. I hadn’t had anyone wash my hair for me ever, apart from my mum, and that was when I was still in primary school. Shampoo, also smelling of roses, was massaged into my scalp. I refrained from purring under the attention, but only just. I couldn’t resist pressing into the touch, though.

“Down again, gorgeous.”

He’d been calling me that all day, I realised, as he washed my hair out once more. I couldn’t say I agreed. I had been a state when they brought me in; still bruised, scarred, covered in blood and dirt. Even without all that, no one would call me gorgeous standing next to the beautiful women Negan had married. I was by no means ugly. I liked the way I looked. I liked my hair. I liked my smile. That’s all I needed.

But he kept calling me gorgeous.

And I liked that, too.

And maybe Negan was enjoying himself as much as me. He had a quiet contentment I’d never seen from him as he wrung out my hair. He hadn’t made any lewd or flirtatious comments, there were no wanderings hands other than brief, tender shoulder and neck massages. It was… almost loving, and I found myself thinking about his Lucille, whoever she was, and if he was back in a time where he had done this for her. Had he been so tender with her, so careful.

The little room with Negan caring for this unknown woman vanished and my reverie broke as Negan finished rubbing my hair and signalled it was time to get up. He propped me up against the wall, reaching behind him for a towel that he quickly set about using to rub me down. He ignored my self-conscious aborted motions to take the towel and dry myself, patting me down in an efficient, impersonal manner. He hustled me out of the bath, letting me use him as a crutch as he emptied the bath, even as I brushed my teeth in front of his bathroom mirror. Carrying me back to the bed, he helped me into a new nightgown he pulled off the bed. It was shorter than the one previous, a beautiful burgundy silk tipped with lace; a negligee really, but still relatively modest.

In no time at all, I was under the sheets, propped up against numerous pillows, watching Negan come out of the bathroom after his own bath. Unsurprisingly, despite his earlier, I hesitate to call it, chivalry, he made no moves to set up on the sofa. Instead, he forced me to shuffle over, jumping into bed beside me, no apologies, nothing.

He reached up to flip the lights and we were thrown into darkness.

“Sweet dreams, sugar tits.”

  
  


The last time I woke to a man in bed with me was Adam after a night of hurt, right before I set him on fire.

This was different.

Negan wasn’t awake yet. I’d seen him asleep before when I walked in after a run to find him with Deano on my bed, but this was much more intimate. I had never liked cuddling in bed, getting too hot to enjoy clingy bed partners, so we remained a safe distance, no tangling limbs or unconscious magnetism or anything like that. But our faces were close and I found myself staring at Negan’s, so much more worn in sleep. His lines enhanced, I wondered how old he really was. Older than forty, definitely, by the grey in his hair and beard. Maybe even fifty though he was certainly… younger in character.

Then his eyes opened, and I was looking into brown eyes still warm from whatever dreams he was walking in.

“Negan?”

He hummed in answer, eyes closing once more

I paused, feeling oh so cautious.

“What is it, gorgeous?” His question muffled against the pillow, voice even huskier than normal. The hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I shifted, uncomfortable with how attractive this man was first thing in the morning.

No, I couldn’t. I changed my question. “Do you ever miss Before?”

He didn’t even need to think about. “No.”

“Why not?”

He opened his eyes. “Why should I? I’ve built something amazing, better than Before. Look at this place, I have everything I could fucking need.”

I didn’t say anything, but my face must have spoken volumes because he chuckled lowly, something sadder than humour in the sound. “You know, you remind me of my wife.”

Quick as a whip, I retorted, “Which one?”

That drew a proper laugh from him. “No… I mean my wife from Before. Lucille.”

I watched him carefully. I knew to be wary of men struggling to deal with the past in these times. “You don’t have to elaborate.”

“She was a lot different of course; Brasher, louder. She always wore this little black dress and this cherry red lipstick.” He groaned then, rolling onto his back, staring up, the both of us imagining her leaning over him. “Fuck, I couldn’t stop kissing her when she had it on, getting it all over my mouth.”

“But she was clever and brave. She didn’t take anyone’s shit, especially not mine.” An unspoken _like you_ followed every line. “But above all, she was a bleeding heart, I swear. And she wanted kids. She loved kids. It broke her heart when I said no. That’s what killed her, not the affairs, not cancer. The fact that I couldn’t, wouldn't, give her the one thing she wanted with every fucking bone in her body.”

“And I don’t miss her, because I’m a fucking coward, and I’m glad I don’t feel guilty anymore.”

We were quiet then, both of us lost in our thoughts.

“I don’t think you’re a coward.”

I breathed deeply, before repeating, “I don’t.”

With his eyes on me, and him calling me _brave_ and _clever_ and  _gorgeous_ , I spoke. “It’s not cowardice to want to forget. To want to move on. To make something new.”

And then he was there, leaning over me, his morning breath mingling with mine. My hands floundered at my sides. My eyes couldn’t decide where to look. He didn’t seem to have the same problem, staring down at me, eyes mapping every inch of my face, lingering on my lips. His hand came to my cheek, brushing away some wild strands of hair. I grew increasingly aware of the sleepy dust around my eyes, the uncomfortable saliva lingering around my teeth, the mess that my hair had dried into. But none of that seemed to matter.

He kissed me anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all you're getting for a little while, folks, sorry. Hope you enjoyed it.


	11. Cherry Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses are all well and good until mistakes are made and words are said. Bonus, trip to meet the community that becomes Oceanside with Negan getting to show off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cherry Wine by Hozier
> 
> You guys didn't think you'd get that kiss for free right?

 

It was as any first kiss taking place at god knows when in the morning.

Slightly uncomfortable, a little too intimate, and heart-stoppingly tender.

I moved with him when he pulled away, helpless in the gravity he exerted on me. He ducked down to kiss me once more.

And again. And again.

Very quickly he left me reeling as he pressed his lips to mine, over and over, propping himself over me. I felt confused. It was like he was as starved of affection as I was. But he had his wives…He distracted me with an open-mouthed kiss to my neck, sucking lightly. I gasped, fingers flexing on his arm. He saved me from having to pull him closer, pushing into me like he could sink through me if he tried hard enough.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re so fucking sexy.”

My eyes kept closing, lost in this dream, basking in the glow of his heat and his need. Negan shoved the covers down impatiently, a hand coming up to bracket the leg I had flinched back at the change in temperature. Legs I slowly spread. Legs he guided around his hips as he kept his mouth hot against my neck.

“Fuck, that’s fucking perfect, gorgeous.”

I breathed out as he carefully thrust against me. He paused, asking. I answered by squeezing my legs slightly around his waist, nosing at his scruff. He breathed out a chuckle, moving more assuredly, at an almost luxurious pace. I lay back, humming contentedly.

“ _Negan_.”

He choked out something between a groan and a laugh, jerking hard into me before resuming his slow rocking, hands roaming from my thighs to my collarbone, stroking everywhere in between. “Fuck, darling, just like that.”

I reached a tentative hand out, splaying my fingers wonderingly across his chest, still clad in his white shirt. When he looked down in question, I pushed him back, quickly moving astride him. He groaned unashamedly then, throwing his head back and bucking up. He yanked me down, stealing my mouth in a biting kiss. My lips stung. My cut reopened. Large hands bruised into my hips as I moved back, pulling me into a rolling motion. His eyes seemed to haze over as he stared up at me, unfocused.

“Fuck,” he gasped. “ _Lucille_.”

I stopped. Still caught in his mirage his hands clenched at my hips again, eyes closed until I shoved them off. Mortified, I staggered off the bed, blood rushing back to my head.

“Dora, what-”

When the room stopped spinning, and I felt able to stand, I began to search for my clothes.

“Dora, what the fuck-”

I spun, heated with lingering arousal, but more presently, fury and shame.

He was still fucking lying there.

Fury. I’ll stick with that.

“Oh so you do recognise me,” I asked, hating how my voice wobbled. Like I was upset or something.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What?” I laughed loudly, harshly. “You didn’t even realise, did you? You get your wives names right when you fuck them?”

Realisation quickly passed over his face before it was replaced by the face I had become so accustomed to. More blase _bullshit._

“Fuck, I’m sorry, just, please… come back to bed, you’re not supposed to be walking yet.”

“Fuck off,” I snapped, spinning and opening the wardrobe, searching for anything, so I could leave. “Those women, your _wives_ , may let you call them whatever the fuck you like. But when you’re fucking me, which you are not gonna be doing anytime soon, you’re fucking _me_.”

“Fuck, woman, calm the fuck down!”

I paused, my hand passing over something silky. Grasping I pulled the unknown item out. A little black dress. I felt like it was about to burst into flames from the heat coursing through my body.

In another world, the dress would have meant nothing. Without the context, I wouldn’t have cared.

But nothing exists outside of context.

And this little black dress ruined everything.

I wondered if he could feel the heat of the rage I felt like a furnace in my mouth.

I threw the dress at him, ignoring his yell.

“Why did you want me to wear the dress?”

“Can I not give you a gift now?” he demanded angrily, struggling off the bed, shoving a hand down his pants, righting himself.

I growled, before straightening my back, gathering my resolve. I stared him down, the burning freezing to ice. “I’m not one of your wives, Negan.”

“You seem to forget, I’ve never asked you to be.”

“I’m not your wife.”

“What?” He snarled, face a mask of rage I’d never been exposed to. I shrunk back, wide-eyed, as he strode closer, looming over me. “What did you fucking say?”

Breathing deep, I stepped into his space, glaring up at him.

“I’m not your wife.”

“I’m not Lucille.”

Our faces were as close as they had been only a moment ago, sharing morning breath in the faint light of morning. But the affection and tenderness were gone from Negan, so completely I wondered if it had even existed at all. He sneered, leaning back.

“Get the fuck out.”

And I left, slamming the door behind me.

  
  
  


I limped slowly back to my room, fueled only by rage and humiliation. I probably wasn’t the first woman to make this trek. I certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Though I might have been the only one to have gotten lost.

Eventually, some passerby took pity on me, asking what section I was housed in before guiding me back, asking no questions as to why I was limping around with a bloodied lip, hickeys on my neck and chest, clad only in lacey lingerie. My eyes throbbed, my leg twinged with every step and when I shut my door behind me, thanking my guide, I sat down and cried.

  
  


Eventually, a knock came. When I reluctantly opened the door, it was Tina dropping off Deano and Samson, a look of confusion on her face.

“I thought you were staying with Negan, we went there first-”

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” I said, feeling short. Deano jumped into my arms, and I braced myself in the doorway to stay upright. Looking up at an upset Tina, I sighed guiltily before gesturing for her to come in. Samson press-ganged me onto the bed, Deano tight in my arms, before sticking his nose against my knee in an act of canine solidarity.

“Are you alright? You look like you’ve been crying?”

Deano’s head twisted so suddenly, he reminded me of The Exorcist.

“Crying? Dora sad?”

I shook my head down at him, after shooting a look at Tina who winced. “No, I’ve just been a bit sneezy. Like how I sometimes get in the garden.”

Struck by inspiration, I gave Deano a watery smile. “You know who I brought back on my trip?” I asked, reaching for the toy wolf.

The ploy worked, Deano quickly absorbed after a joyous yell of “Wolfie!”. Absentmindedly, I scratched Samson’s ears.

I apologised to Tina quietly, moving over to the couch to sit beside her. “I had a fight with Negan.”

She reached to my face before thinking twice, looking down at her lap. “I’m sorry.”

I looked at her in askance. “Why are you sorry?”

She fidgeted a bit before the words forced themselves out. “I told you to stay and now he’s hit you again.” She gestured to my lip.

I gaped at her, before understanding. “No… he didn’t hit me, he… kissed me.”

It was her turn to look shellshocked. “He what?”

I flushed deeply, avoiding her eyes to watch Deano who played in a world of his own, Samson now curled around him.

Tina’s voice dropped to a hesitant whisper, “And you got angry?”

“Yes, I mean, no, not straight away, but then-” I cut myself off, feeling that breaching Negan’s trust in such a way would be truly unforgivable no matter my anger. “Needless, it wasn’t any fault of yours.”

She looked down again, strawberry blonde hair falling over her eyes. I watched her bite her lip in turmoil. Friends show concern, I reminded myself, hastily. I figured that was where we were at. Discussing boy trouble and what not.

“Are you alright, Tina?”

She smiles up at, eyes glistening, and nods.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

  
  
  


It turns out my enforced bed rest was a load of shit. I found out when Paula barged into my quarters demanding why I hadn’t shown up at meals yet. I was able to stand and walk on my own with the doctor’s permission, allowed, of course, by Negan though I had not seen hide nor hair of him since I stormed from his room. My leg was healing well, my head was clear and my bruises almost completely faded.

I hated to admit it now, loathed myself for feeling its loss, but I had been enjoying Negan’s special treatment. The quality of life I had been allowed to experience as part of his party. Now though, I realised I was just another prop to add to the wonderful, terrible presence he paraded around. Another Saviour, another wife… like that godawful bat. _Lucille_.

And yet when the call came for me to go back out on another run, one that Negan was leading, I went. I wouldn’t shrink from him. I had no reason to. He was the one who should cower, not me.

He avoided me. Not overtly. I was just another Saviour now, resigned to my rank, far below his own. I listened from the back, next to Dwight, when he told us of the new community they had located and had been scouting. It was time to colonise.

I held back from calling him out on how well that had worked out for everyone in history, _ever_. But even then, only just. Paula muscled me into her van before I could start a fight.

I was itching for one.

The drive was long, longer than any run I’d gone on yet. It was a number of hours before we arrived. We pulled up, spanned out across an area. In the distance, a makeshift fort constructed out of an old horse ranch. People looking over at us nervously. I could see a garden, and multiple guns but very few fingers on triggers. No wonder Negan wanted this place. Ripe and easy pickings.

Negan signalled for a fan out but yanked me into his side as I tried to shove past him. I tried to shake him off but his grip was like a vice as he pressed his mouth to my ear.

“Don’t go embarrassing me, sugar tits,” he murmured, voice low and deadly serious.

I smiled sickly sweet as Paula turned back, looking for me. “Don’t worry, Negan. I always know who I’m talking to.” And then I do shake him off, almost jogging to catch up with Paula, reluctantly accepting the rifle she shoves into my hands. Arat had given me extra training during my seclusion.

I couldn’t deny it was captivating watching Negan do his thing. He was the perfect blend of showman and menace, lulling and threatening. He spun his little speech like a master craftsman and I watched as this so very scared community shuddered and quaked at all the intended ques. He was so convincing, you almost thought it was an act.

But then he moved for a demonstration.

A young girl, long dark hair, was pulled from the crowd by Simon, to be thrown at Negan’s feet. He grinned, white teeth flashing in the sun. I gritted my teeth. Paula knocked into my shoulder, and I started to grind them. She was probably tasked with keeping me in line.

The girl could only be maybe sixteen. She spat in his face. My body went tense. Instinctively, I searched the crowd gathered. Three faces stood out from the rest in their fear. A man and two women, one older, maybe a grandmother.

Negan shoved the girl down, swinging Lucille up, and then bringing it down.

The mother sobbed out a cry of “Cyndie!”

Lucille smashed into the ground an inch from the girl’s head.

“And that is why you guys are gonna work for me. Someone go find me a fucking treat.”

Saviours began to move and I quickly ran forward, past Paula and Negan to help the girl up. She was gasping deep breaths of air, and I saw the crotch of her shorts growing dark with damp. Laughter came from behind us, but I just ushered her up and into the arms of her family who yanked her out of my grasp and away, into a nearby hut. The grandmother stayed, glaring at Negan, then more thoughtfully at me, before following.

I too was quickly yanked away.

When we were a sufficient distant, out of sight and earshot, Negan turned on me. His eyes flashed and he bared his teeth in warning. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I thought I fucking told you not to go and embarrass me out there.”

Pulling out of his grasp, I snapped back. “I didn’t intervene, I didn’t say anything.”

“You helped that girl.”

“She was terrified!”

“That was the fucking point!” He yelled back.

“Well, you certainly made your point.”

Negan suddenly breathed deep before getting up close, grabbing me by my cheeks. He spoke low and calm.

“You are going to stay by my side for the rest of this trip. You are not going to speak to anyone, you are not going to look at anyone. If you’re going to act like a stupid bitch, you’re going to be treated like a stupid bitch. On a short fucking leash.”

I bared my teeth right back, relishing the blow when it came.

  
  


We walked back into the camp and I wore my new bruise like a badge of honour, darkly satisfied with my ability to get to Negan, even if it only prompted violence. Negan hadn’t been kidding about the short leash, not letting me venture even a metre from his side before yanking me back, often by the wrist, but sometimes by my hair or the back of my neck. Pushed around like a beaten wife. Just another spectacle to be made.

Nobody makes a fool of Negan.

When Negan was satisfied everyone was suitably wetting their pants, he called for muster out, shoving me into an RV ahead of him. No one followed us in.

Great.

I tried to sit on the couches but he forced me into the passenger seat.

Negan drove in silence, something I was still unused to from him. Occasionally he would look up, find me looking out the window, and scowl. After a while, I began to take a savage pleasure from it. He could hit and yank and push as he liked. I would find my own forms of vengeance.

I hammed up my ignoring him, acting uncaring, oblivious, totally unimpressed. Turns out Negan doesn’t like being ignored. Who would have guessed?

He slammed the brakes, making Saviours behind us narrowly avoid crashing. Impatiently, he waved out the window, and they passed. He turned to me, glaring.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

I stayed looking ahead, serene, like Negan was nothing more than an irritating fly. “I don’t have a problem, Negan.”

“The fuck you don’t,” he snarled.

“What? You gonna beat a confession out of me if I don’t tell you?” I asked, my lips curled into a sneer, daring him.

Surprisingly, he remained silent.

“Oh that’s right,” I taunted again, “You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

He stared at me, face unreadable. After a moment’s impasse, he turned the key in the ignition and we set off again. After ten minutes I searched for a CD. Surprisingly, I found something halfway decent and turned my back to Negan as I watched fields and towns pass by. At some point, I don’t know when I began to hum along.

“You gonna sing me a song, kid?”

“You gonna make me?”

He sighed from behind me. I ignored him.

“Are you ever going to be easy?”

I let myself smile, knowing it wasn’t for him, and he couldn’t see it anyway. “My mum always said it’s not in my nature.”

He gave a dark chuckle, and I held back a shudder. “I don’t think it’s in mine either.”

I felt his gaze on me, on the back of my head. How close he was. How easy it would be for him to reach out and grab me. Hurt me. Kiss me.

I could almost feel _Lucille_ as a physical presence between us.

I hated him.

As much as I could, anyway.

Silence reigned once more until we got back to the Sanctuary. There Tina waited in the courtyard, Deano in arms. Samson by her side. Her face paled when she saw Negan but she managed a smile for me as she passed me Deano. He chattered and giggled, reaching for Negan as well, who only booped his nose before walking away.

By the door to the Sanctuary, a woman with long red hair, _Frankie_ I remembered vaguely, stood in a little black dress. Negan groped her before taking her mouth in a kiss almost grotesque, before sauntering inside with her on his arm.

He didn’t look back at me.

I watched them go, the phantom of Lucille beside me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we see nothing can go right for Dora without something going wrong. But, at least this time it was Negan's fault. Much more turmoil on the way soon :)


	12. How Soon Is Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions of all kinds are rife at the Sanctuary and the community. Shit goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How Soon Is Now - The Smiths

 

Two months down. I got the official notice that morning by way of Tina. She grimaced as she passed the parcel over, hurrying away before I could call her back. I opened it while Deano was occupied with his breakfast. From what would have been an expensive sheet of deep red velvety wrapping paper, a black mass fell. It was silky to touch. I held it up.

It was a little black dress. Silky, lacey. Indecent.

I balled it up and threw it in the toilet. Then I yanked it out before it broke the loo.

Fallen out from the paper, on my bed lay a note and a cherry red lipstick.

_Happy Anniversary Sugar Tits_

Dick. I got my revenge by taking the lipstick to his door in the dead of night. There, the following morning, Simon would find the message tacky and smudged, a ruined lipstick on the floor:

_Red Isn’t My Colour._

The next day after that I almost broke my neck standing on the lipstick container outside my door. Irritated and curious both, I opened it and laughed. The lipstick was a garish vomit green, the kind you find in two-dollar stores. From inside the cap, a note fell out.

_To match your personality._

Humour buoyed me that day, and I bared my teeth at Negan in a savage smile as I handed Deano to him before my run, lips spread wide, vomit green.

I was being sent regularly now to the new community. Tensions were so high they were tangible, like everyone was stuck in this big game of Russian roulette. Negan often accompanied us but not always. When he did he pissed around like some dog with his balls hanging out. Keeping me on a short leash like he said he would. His bitch. And every time, he would force me into his van for the ride back to Sanctuary and tensions would just ramp up to the point of suffocation.

I was unpacking the back of the van when he came up behind me.

“I see you’re wearing my present.”

I didn’t turn. He hated it when I didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Only in hopes that it will ward you off.”

“I don’t know. The green is starting to turn me on a bit.”

“I just think that you’re a nymphomaniac.”

“You mean sex god.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You could.” He was so close, a bare inch between us. Every breath brushed me against him, and his lips would skim the nape of my neck. I said nothing. He continued.

“Fuck, I knew you’d look good in whatever colour I gave you, but shit that green is doing something for me.”

I snorted, turning around to find he had trapped me in his arms. He didn’t move back.

“You’ve got five gorgeous wives up in that building, all willing to fuck you at a moments notice. Why the fuck are you chasing around the scrawny girl with scars and green lipstick?”

“Nothing gets me hard like a woman with blood under her nails and a fuckton of issues.”

I scoffed bitterly. “Well, they’re a dime a dozen at the moment.”

“We already established the green lipstick as a newfound kink as well. And,” his voice lowered suddenly, and large warm hands moved to cradle my waist. “Not so scrawny anymore.”

He was right. I’d regained much of the weight I had lost all that time on my own. I didn’t have to make new holes in my belt anymore. I wondered if he could feel the butterflies in my stomach. Those hands moved to stroke my stomach. I realised I was shaking.

He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. I tugged him between my legs. I hadn’t even noticed moving my hands to his jacket. When he kissed me again, I opened my mouth to it and pushed back against him. His hands curled tighter into me, before slipping down to pull at my thighs. Quickly I found myself sitting in the boot of the van while Negan held me against him. The kisses grew hot, fierce, insistent. Like we were trying to consume each other.

Negan left my mouth, teeth nipping at my throat. I gasped, surprised enough into releasing a throaty moan. Negan moaned into my shoulder, one hand sliding up to knead at a breast. My own hands, I let pull Negan’s shirt out from his jeans before happily moving underneath to brush fingernails against his chest.

When Negan moved to reclaim my lips I was ready for him, at once biting, licking, kissing. We panted into each other's mouths as we allowed our hands to roam. I could feel Negan hard my thigh. I tightened my legs around him and his hips jerked into me.

As quickly as it all began, Negan disentangled himself from me. With a deep purr-like rumble in his chest, he dipped in once more to press a heated kiss to my mouth before pulling away completely, reaching into his jeans to right himself. Dark eyes stared at my green-smeared lips as I panted for breath, and he reached out one hand to wipe the colour. He then smirked before strutting off, whistling under his breath.

I wondered if he knew the same gaudy green smeared around my lips was now to be found all over his own.

He probably wouldn’t care.

I was still shaking.

  
  


It was one of the days where Negan elected to remain behind at Sanctuary. Deano was playing with Samson behind us. I had already said my goodbyes to them. Negan stood across from me, in the doorway to my room. We had remained distant after the kiss at the van. I knew I felt awkward about it. Not shy, and not really embarrassed, but out of kilter. Unsteady feet on uneven ground. I couldn’t even begin to think about how to navigate this maze of our interactions. I expected Negan to exude smugness over the altercation, boast a bit, flirt shamelessly, or flaunt himself as unavailable. Strangely enough, he did none of those. He would simply watch me quietly. Of course, he was by no means a changed man. He would still sign off with his typical vulgar comment and sometimes a wink or a lewd grin. But beyond that… nothing.

I keep having to tell myself that I’m not disappointed he hasn’t tried to kiss me again.

It doesn’t work.

But then I remembered the dress and that name, his voice hot and rasping in my ear.

_“Lucille.”_

That works like an ice bath.

We walked down to the mess hall in silence, Deano in Negan’s arms, as usual, chattering away about the story Tina had been reading to him. Samson prowled at my side, occasionally nipping at my fingers when I got overly lost in thought.

“You’re not wearing the lipstick.”

Before I could stop myself my fingers drifted across my lips. Negan’s eyes flashed before he glanced at the oblivious Deano and visibly holds his tongue. I cleared my throat with an awkward cough.

“I got a little tired of the colour.”

“I’ll get you a new one.”

A few beats of silence passed before I forced myself to move forward and pressed a kiss goodbye to Deano’s head again. I hesitantly met Negan’s eyes.

“I guess I’ll see you later then.”

I walked off quickly to where Arat waits for me. I could feel his eyes following me well down the road to the new community.

  
  


As soon as we got there, it was clear something was brewing and whatever it is, the fallout would not be pretty. It felt like everyone was walking along the edge of a guillotine. One slip, you’d lose your head. Without Negan there to keep me tied to his bootlaces, I wandered a little. The community itself was rather large. Nowhere near as large as the Sanctuary, but still, significant. They were largely farmers it seemed. There was little in the way of ammo and weapons, even before Negan took his portion. They didn’t even seem to have a structured defence. A set guard rotation and little else. Those that were allowed weapons eyed the Saviours recklessly. I knew they were imagining it. Killing us all. I knew because I had too.

In the end, I settled amongst the farmers. Officially, to keep an eye on them, making sure they didn’t sneak any of the produce off to hide away from the census. In reality, I was filing away every bit of learning I could from watching them with the plants. Agriculture was looking more and more like a solid career path. Eventually one of them seemed to realise I wasn’t so much policing as studying. It was the girl Negan had made pee herself on the first day.

She was pretty, with long wavy dark hair and tanned brown skin. I learned her name was Cyndie. The three I had assumed was her family were her younger brother, her mother and her grandmother. The two women watched us with suspicion as Cyndie showed me the correct way to care for the crops. Neither spoke up, however, too closely watch by the other Saviours to risk anyone’s ire.

Suddenly, one of the Saviours, a woman I didn’t recognise, stormed over and grabbed the grandmother by the throat. Immediately we were all on our feet, Saviours and the community. Shouts coming from both sides. The Saviour woman shouted over everyone else.

“You bitch! Where are they?”

I spun wildly, looking for Simon or Arat. Neither were in sight. Meanwhile, the woman is shaking the grandmother, Natania, by the throat, screaming in her face. Natania remains almost slack in her hold, stony-faced, even as the woman choked her.

“Where are they, you old cunt?”

None of the other Saviours were moving, seemingly impassive in the face of the attack. A tight hand gripped my arm. I looked to see Cyndie, white-faced, staring at her grandmother.

“That’s it!” The Saviour abruptly let Natania go, and the older woman swayed under her freedom. Then the woman pulled out her gun.

“Stop!” I yelled, desperately, quickly moving forward to grab the woman’s arm. She pulled it out of my grasp, shoving me to the ground as she lined the grandmother up in her sights. A gunshot rang through the air and I cried out as the blast deafened me. Disorientated, I staggered upright and looked down to see not Natania but the Saviour lying dead next to me, a bullet in the head. I looked up, swaying to the side as my ears rang. A man stood directly opposite me, gun trained on my head. He cocked his gun before another shot rang out and he fell. I spun, drunkenly. Dwight stood behind me, lowering his gun with a weak smile.

All Saviours stood to attention, grabbing someone and holding a gun to their heads.

“What the fuck is going on over here?”

Simon ran over, Arat at his heels. Seeing the Saviour lying dead, his face turned fierce. His dark gaze landed on me.

“Dora, report.”

I shook my head trying to clear my ears. “The woman, one of ours, she- She grabbed a woman demanding where something was but when she wouldn’t answer she was going to shoot her. That man shot her before Dwight shot him.”

Simon swore colourfully, rubbing at the lines on his forehead. He straightened. “This is a serious transgression. You have shot and killed one of our men. You have hidden resources from us. You have _broken_ the rules.”

“You know what comes after breaking the rules. Punishment.”

The Saviours then have all of their captives shoved to their knees, guns pressed against their skulls. I staggered slightly into Dwight side, allowing him to brace me as I gaped, knowing nothing I could say or do would stop this from happening. Simon paced along the lines of captives, his own gun gripped firmly in hand. He stopped and pulled the trigger. It was a young woman, probably my age or similar. A man keened to my left, struggling in the arms of another man before finally escaping and crawling to the body that had fallen.

“You see what happens,” Simon called out angrily.”You break the rules, your innocents pay the price. You break more rules, more people are going to die until you learn this lesson. You all belong to Negan now.”

The man crying over the woman staggered to his feet and lunged at Simon, only for Arat to crack her pistol across the back of his head. He collapsed in a heap.

“Stow him in the van,” Simon snapped. “This one needs to learn some manners.”

Everyone was quick to pack up after that. Cyndie was ushered away quickly by her mother and grandmother into a nearby hut and all other members of the community retreated just as fast. The dead were left, lying like potholes everyone swerved to avoid even looking at. Dwight shoved me into the car with him and Arat.

I stared out the window the whole ride back, trying to rub the ringing out of my ears.

  
  
  


“Good run?”

I kept looking down as I unloaded the car. I had managed to avoid helping take the prisoner in. If Negan was hoping for another snog, he could go find one of his wives.

“You should probably go talk to Simon about it.”

I could see his brow furrowing into his serious face in my mind. “What happened?”

“You should ask Simon.”

A hand gripped my elbow before relieving my hands of the box I had been lifting. “I want you to tell me.”

I sighed, still avoiding his searching gaze. “One of ours attacked one of theirs. One of theirs killed one of ours. One of ours killed one of theirs. Simon killed another as punishment then took one prisoner.”

Negan whistled like he was impressed. “Busy fucking day then,” he joked.

I glared at him before going to grab another box. I hissed as I brushed grazes on the heel of my hands. I must have gotten them when the Saviour had shoved me to the ground. Negan quickly grabbed my wrists, bringing my hands to his inspection. He swore. “One of them?”

“One of yours,” I spat venomously, snatching my wrists back. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

I moved to step around him only for him to grab me once more.

“It’s necessary-”

“Don’t tell me it’s necessary and don’t ask me to celebrate their people’s deaths. Not when _your_ people are just as happy to point a gun at me as they are.”

I made sure not to wait around for his reply.

  
  


I found Tina in our room with Deano and Samson. Again, she left quickly, blanching at the sight of me, muttering a quick goodbye under her breath. To be honest, I was too wrapped up in myself to care. I forced myself through motions; kissing Deano hello, showering, changing, cooking, cleaning up. At the end I sat with Deano and Samson, watching Deano trying to climb him like a jockey. I must have zoned out because I snapped to attention when I found myself with a lap full of toddler.

“Is it time for bed already?” I asked him, gasping dramatically, swinging him up.

He giggled briefly before sobering quite abruptly. Gently, as only children can, he pressed his smooth little hand to my face. “Are you sad?”

I sighed as I helped him change. “A bit.”

“Why.”

“I had a pretty stinky day.”

He poked the plasters I had put on my palms.”Owie?”

“Yeah, I got some owies too.”

I hummed as I sat, staring at Deano as he watched me. He had grown these past two months, quite significantly. A constant food source, shelter and socialisation were working wonders for him. It felt closer to what having a child before would feel like, I thought. I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not but he was happy and healthy. What more could I ask?

“I don’t know what to do Deano.”

His little mouth pursed, and bizarrely, he looked a little like Negan, thinking through a decision. He turned big blinking eyes to me, apparently reaching some conclusion.

“Love you.”

I sighed again, a little wetly this time. I pulled Deano into my arms, moving us both onto the bed. We curled up together, like we used to, out in the woods during winter. Deano sucked on his thumb and I didn’t have the heart to tell him not to.

“I love you too, Deano.

I didn’t even notice the sky blue lipstick outside the door. Deano pointed it out in the morning. I put it on in the mirror that night and force my lips into a smile.

It looks like a smurf-blue grimace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Surprise, surprise, I'm actually back and continuing. Got distracted for a little while but a lovely comment brought me back on the job. Will try to do regular updates from now on.  
> XXX


	13. Smackwater Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora asks Negan to release the prisoner and a bunch of shit happens as a result.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smackwater Jack by Carole King

 

I got the impression that this wasn’t the first time the Sanctuary had housed a prisoner.

I supposed I shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, what had I considered myself. Still considered myself.

Needless to say, everyone went about their usual business. Upon seeing me, Paula smacked my head, checked my hands, smacked me again, before rebuffing every attempt to discuss the events. Everyone else avoided me.

Simon had told Negan everything. I had made sure to be absent from that conversation. The only person whose presence I welcomed was Deano’s. Though I was thinking about rescinding it.

“Ow, Deano!”

“Sowwy.”

“Sorry,” I corrected, patiently.

“Sowwy.” I sighed.

“That’s alright, just don’t pull so hard.” Currently, Deano was attempting to braid my hair like he’d seen two of Negan’s wives braiding each others’ hair and wanted to give it a go. I had told him that his hair was too short so he insisted on using mine for his test run. I would be surprised if there was any hair left after this. Samson helped where he could, shoving his wet nose into my ear, nudging Deano, making him squirm and pull my hair some more. Occasionally, Deano would stop and try and braid something in. Generally random items; a ring he found, some string, a lolly wrapper. I did make him wash it first. I didn’t really fancy ants in my hair.

With one last yank and a yelp from me, Deano declared himself finished. Warily, I stood and wandered slowly to the mirror. The result that greeted me was as endearing as it was painful, and in actual fact, not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

“Pwetty?”

“Very pretty,” I assured him and gave him a kiss.

  
  


“Can I come in?”

“What the fuck happened to your hair?” Dwight opened the door despite his greeting. Making sure to glance behind me, I entered swiftly.

“Hmm? Oh, Deano.” I was distracted by my surroundings. The room was smaller than my own, though this one housed to adults, rather than a woman, a toddler and a dog. Sherry left the room quickly after my arrival. My gaze trailed her exit before glancing at Dwight. He shrugged.

“Sherry doesn’t like getting Negan’s attention.”

Right, I scowled to myself. Because where I go, Negan’s eyes and obnoxious mouth are sure to follow.

“Listen, Dwight. I need a favour.”

“What kind of favour?”

“I need to talk to the man from the community. The prisoner.”

“Why in the fuck would you wanna do that?”

“For my own reasons. Can you do it?”

“What will I get in return?” He demanded and I couldn’t find it for myself to be mad.

“A favour. To cash in at any moment.”

The thin man eyed me warily. He seemed to come to some sort of conclusion and thrust out his hand. I shook it firmly.

“You’re going to regret this.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

  
  


I was glad I had asked Dwight to take me to the cells. The path was extended, with numerous diversions. I would have been lost in a heartbeat without my guide. We came eventually to a barren corridor lined with windowless walls and hefty doors. We came to a stop outside one.

“This is it,” Dwight hummed. “You sure you want to go in?”

I nodded silently. He hummed again before moving forward to unlock it quickly, glancing over his shoulder.

“Be quick about it.”

When I went in, I was immediately hit by the stench; a terrible mix of urine, shit and vomit. I didn’t see him straight away. I flashed the torch Arat gave me. There he was, huddled into the corner of the cell in a dirty jumpsuit. My hands twitched nervously over the gun.

“Who are you?”

His voice was soft and wet. I wondered if I’d slip and fall on his tears. “Ah. You’re one of them.”

“No-”

“You are, I saw you. Walking around with the leader, that Negan. You’re his little bitch. Did he send you here?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Come to taunt the prisoner, laugh?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?” He leant forward, bringing his face to the light. His eyes were rimmed with red, face swollen with grief. With closer proximity, the smell grew worse and I flinched backwards.

“I- I don’t really know.”

“I know why you’re here. You’re here so I know who to kill. You killed Millie, my wife. You killed her.”

“I didn’t-”

“You did. That man shot her. He was Negan. Negan killed my wife.” He crawled closer. Jerkily, I raised my gun. He sneered. “You’re Negan. You killed my wife too.”

“I’m not. I’m not Negan.”

“Aren’t you?” He sat back, a noise wheezing out of him, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Aren’t we all?”

“He is what this world makes us. Millie used to say every day, she recognised herself a little less. I never could figure out what she meant. You’re Negan, I’m Negan. I killed my wife. I see it now.”

I felt cold metal against my back. I had backed up into the door with realising. I wrapped against the metal, harshly.

“I’m going to kill you. Negan killed my wife. I’m going to kill his bitch.”

The door pulled open and I fell back into Dwight as he pulled me away. The door slammed shut.

Shakily, I got to my feet. Dwight raised his brows. “I hope you didn’t do that for the happy-clappy moments.”

“Who the fuck says happy-clappy.”

  


Negan stood outside my room, Samson sat on his haunches in front of my door when I returned. His beard was growing rather thick, I noted idly. My fingers twitched. Samson walked to my side.

“I’m assuming you going to Dwight’s room earlier had something to do with you visiting the prisoner from the new community?”

I had expected Negan to find out about my talking to the man. I hadn’t expected a confrontation so soon.

“Is this all you do in your spare time? When you’re not bashing in heads? Stalking me?” I snapped back, trying to walk past him to my door. He blocked my way. Samson growled lowly so I ran a soothing hand over his head.

“Why were you talking to the prisoner?” He asked me, calmly.

“I don’t know,” I exploded, throwing my hands up. “I don’t know why I went down there. I felt shit before, I feel shit now. Shit and confused and angry and scared.”

“Why are you scared?” I couldn’t understand how he was so _fucking_ calm when I felt so unstable.

“Because everyone keeps telling me I’m just like you and I’m starting to believe them!”

As soon as the words came out I wished for nothing more than to reel them all back in again. He watched me in silence until I began to fidget under his stare.

“Are you going to release him?” I blurted out the question.

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to hurt him?”

There was a pause, then a recovery. “Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Is it such a bad fucking thing? Being like me?” At my incredulous look, he continued his head tilting, face gaining expression. He came close, leaning into space in front of me. “I survive now, I keep my people, _you,_ alive the same way you survived. You kill the people you need to, and some you don’t. It is always the _right_ person at the _right_ time. And those you spare, you use as an example.”

I glanced up then, searching his face for something. “Is that all that man is, an example?” When he didn’t answer, I asked again, “Is that all I am?” No answer came. I straightened up and stared into those dark eyes. “Let him go.”

“No.”

I walked away.

I had a run to go on.

  
  


When we got to the community, all was quiet and everyone was extremely well-behaved, to the point of an almost servile attitude. I think someone actually curtseyed to Arat as she passed. I would have laughed if I didn’t feel so sick. A beam of sunlight pierced the canopy of the trees beneath which I stood. I had elected to guard rather than interact. A child pointed at my hair and the parent grabbed them quickly, apologizing profusely, before scurrying away like I was about to eat her. Sighing, I kicked the ground, wanting desperately to return to Deano and Samson.

My eyes wandered over the people. I wondered what I would do in there place. Fight back? Submit? Were our situation already the same, that I had rolled over for Negan like a bitch in heat. Maybe. Self-loathing writhed in my stomach even as I searched for defences.

_I had to, for Deano._

_He would have killed me, taken Deano._

_To protect._

_To survive._

Maybe I am Negan.

I was distracted by movement. The old woman, Natania, her daughter, Cyndie’s mother, and two men. They were talking quietly at the edge of my vision. A gap in the trees allowed me to see them, though it seemed they were unaware of my presence. Natania handed one of the men a rifle, and the other a bowie knife. They stowed them silently, bending down to hide them under a tarpaulin covered in leaves and moss. They dispersed quickly and silently. I turned ahead and kept my mouth shut.

  
  


Negan was an expert at ambushes. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Let me go.”

“I will. First, tell me why the fuck you’ve been skulking around since you got back..”

“Nothing fucking happened, get it through your thick skull.”

“Listen here, sugar tits-” He grabbed me and shoved me into the wall but as soon as he was pressing into me, he was gone, yanked away, swearing and hollering. I watched, shocked, as Samson dug his teeth into Negan’s arm and shook it.

“Samson, drop!”

“Stupid mutt!” Negan swung Lucille up. I yelled and charged forward, knocking him down before he could connect the blow. We were all on the ground then, Samson pulled my shirt with his teeth. I scrambled backwards, spitting Deano’s braids out of my mouth. My beautiful, savage dog placed himself in front of me snarling and snapping his jaws at Negan who lay shocked before rage took his face. I held up my gun.

“Put the gun down, Dora.”

“Not until you put down the bat.”

“That dog attacked me-”

“Because you attacked me!”

“He has no place in the Sanctuary!”

I gaped at him. He got to his feet, ignoring the wound on his arm. Samson snarled again and I grabbed his tail like I would be able to hold him back.

“You get rid of that dog, or I will.” He turned his back on me and started striding away.

“If Samson goes, I go!” I called out to him, savage with hope and fear.

He turns back, his face contorted into a sneer of violence. “You can both fuck off then. But you’ll be leaving the kid here. So you’ve got to fucking choose. And when you come back here crying, don’t fucking come crying to me.”

  
  


We were outside the fences by a good few miles. I had taken one of the cars, Samson lying across the backseat, trying to catch every sunbeam that was caught through the windows. We pulled up at the cabin. Samson jumped out when I opened the door for him and scouted the area while I unloaded food I had stolen from the mess hall. His tail was thumping a beat against the ground, sitting outside the door to our old hut. We went in, like old times, like we’d never met Negan. But no giggles came from a little boy with curly dark hair. Because he wasn’t there. As if sensing my thoughts, Samson shoved his nose into one of the pictures on the wall, at the little stick figure with black crayon for hair holding hands with the taller figure of me. I hugged the hairy dog to me, pressing kisses into his fur.

“I know you’ll miss him, Samson.” I stood quickly, feeling my face grow wet as tears began to slide freely down my cheeks. “We’ll miss you.” And I ran. I was back in the car and started the engine, motoring out of the clearing. I cried as I drove, and every sob racked my body like the pain of breaking bones. In my mirror I watched the brown blur chase the car until I stepped on the pedal, and it fell behind and was gone.

  
  


Walking back into Sanctuary, I felt like a shadow, drifting up stairs and through corridors until I reached my room. I didn’t acknowledge Tina as she left. I crawled onto the bed with Deano and curled around him, pressing him into me like I could absorb him through my skin, keep him there forever. He stayed quiet in my arms, wriggling when he grew hungry and impatient. I went through the motions only but cradled him at every opportunity. I let him do his braids again when I was huddled in my towel. We were back on the bed when he finally asked me.

“Where’s Samson?”

I stayed quiet for too long and Deano began to cry. I held him even as he hit me.

“It’s alright, shhh shhh, I’m here. I’m here.”

After a while, he became exhausted and dropped off to sleep though I stayed awake. A dog was howling somewhere. I couldn’t sleep.

  
  


I took Deano down with me to the mess hall the next morning, ignoring Tina as she came offering to take him. We ate and then we left, avoiding the Saviour’s table where Arat and Dwight waited for me. I took the stairs slowly, Deano on my hip. A noise came from above me, running footsteps against metal. We looked up. There stood the man from the cell, covered in filth, mouth pulling wide in rage as he saw me.

“You killed my wife.”

In his hand, there was a knife.

“I didn’t- It wasn’t me,” I gasped frantically, stepping backwards. He moved forward. Immediately, I attempted to swing around, getting Deano out of danger. My ankle twisted. The man lunged with a shout. Deano gave a cry, little hands gripping my hair. And we fell. There was a pain. And then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry everyone, but this is where we really start to earn the Angst tag. Brace yourselves.


	14. Blinded By Rainbows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora wakes up and goes to a funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blinded By Rainbows by The Rolling Stones
> 
> Trigger Warning: Young Child Death

 

My face was warm, the feeling of sunshine. Rainbows danced behind closed lids. I shifted. Something was on my head. Squinting my eyes open against the light, I reached up. A bandage. What? I became aware of the noise, muted and low, like a droning in my skull. I turned my head and flinched at the lance of pain. Two blurred figures stood, discussing something. The white one, worried, hands up in defence and a taller, darker one, voice loud and coarse. I winced at the heightened sound, gaining their awareness. Nausea bubbled in my gut. I vomited. The white one rushed over, talking hurriedly and indiscernible. The dark one merely looked before leaving. I fell back into the pillow, footsteps like heartbeats echoing in my ears. I dreamt of falling.

 

The second time I woke was to noise again, clearer this time. Someone was crying.

I heaved my eyes open, moved a hand slowly to wipe away the sleepy dust. Letting my head fall to the side, the room I was in was revealed to me, and I recognised it instantly. I was in the infirmary. Why was I in the infirmary again? I remembered… fighting with Negan? And Samson?

The crying distracted me again and I looked up to see Tina, red-faced with tears, her chair pulled in close to the bed, my limp hand in hers. I tensed my grip around hers and her head flew up.

“Oh, Dora!”

She threw herself at me, clutching my arm with clawing fingernails. My body jolted and I yelped.

“Oh sorry, sorry.”

“It’s alright,” I wheezed, weakly patting her hand that was still white-knuckled on my own. “No harm, no foul.”

“Oh, Dora,” she said wetly, wiping away tears carelessly. “When Negan found you on the stairs we thought you were dead.”

“On the stairs?” I mumbled, mouth dry and tongue swollen. “What happened?”

She looked at me pitying, eyes welling up even more. Something in my stomach began to leaden.

“You fell, Dora. The prisoner from the community escaped and he was coming down the stairs while you must have been going back to your room. He attacked you and you fell. You and Deano.”

Deano. Falling.

I gasped for air, trying to shove myself upright. “Deano? Deano?”

Tina’s face creased with sorrow as she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Dora.”

“Deano’s alright, he’s gotta be.”

She pulled back from me, curling in on herself and shaking her head, weeping. I lunged forwards, following her, ignoring the blinking blackness as my head seemed to ripple in pain. Grabbing her, shaking her as she cried.

“Deano?” I demanded, feeling crazed. _No, he couldn’t be-_ “Where is he? My baby.”

Tina yelled out in pain as I gripped her. The door swung open and Dwight and the Doc ran in, pulling me off her, pushing me back and pinning me to my sheets. I struggled weakly.

“My baby… Deano… Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?”

The doctor loaded up a needle while Dwight held me down.

“My baby… my baby…”

 

Darkness had lifted and I was alone.

I curled up under white sheets. Pressing hands over my ears, I squeezed my eyes shut.

Falling. Falling. Falling.

Holding Deano tight. Crying out.

Falling.

The knife glinting.

Falling.

My baby.

I moaned lowly, the grief that had been building cresting my heart like a tidal wave, ruining everything in its path.

Deano. My baby.

“Where are you?” I sobbed. “Where are you?”

 

“I am… so very sorry, Dora.”

I turned over in bed, my back to Dwight and Sherry beside him. He seemed to get the message as I heard the door shut, finally.

I was staring at a makeshift IV drip they had me rigged up to. I looked down at the needle in my arm and yanked it out, relishing the pain of it. I deserved it. I rolled back onto my back and instantly wished I hadn’t. It felt like falling.

Falling. Falling. Falling.

I hated everyone that walked through the door. They didn’t know. Couldn’t know. We shouldn’t have been here. We didn’t belong here. _We weren’t safe here._

Not me and Deano.

Tina had come, Dwight and his wife, even Arat. Paula had sat in the corner and watched me while I was unconscious. I only knew because I heard her swearing in my sleep. Negan hadn’t visited once.

“Where is he?”

“Who?” Doc asked nervously. He’d been walking around lately like he was stepping on broken glass since I threw a scalpel at him. All sharp objects had been removed from the room. The door was always locked. Apparently, my current state of mind was hazardous to both myself and others around me.

“Where is Negan?”

“I assume he’s, um busy, what with-” He trailed off, eyeing me with trepidation.

“What with,” I agreed sneeringly.

I had been in this room unconscious for four days, and this was my third day of reluctant consciousness. Negan had not come. Where the fuck was Negan.

“Where the fuck is Negan?” I spat out at Tina as she helped change the bandage around my head. She faltered, dropping the roll and gaping at me. I’d made a point for the past day to ignore all attempts at sympathy and remorse or conversation. I hadn’t even acknowledged her when she started touching me.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Why the fuck hasn’t he come?” I felt ready to spit venom I felt so angry. Deano was dead and where was Negan? “Why _the fuck_ isn’t he here?”

“I don’t know, Dora-”

“My b-My Deano is dead and Negan’s gone and fucked off somewhere. Can’t look at me now. Doesn’t want to fuck me now, does he? Now I’m the lady with the dead baby.”

Tina was crying again as she fumbled to grab the bandage roll. The rage stirred in my stomach, rising like flames in my throat. “ _Why the fuck do you keep crying?_ ” I gritted out through clenched teeth and she physically flinched. It was unbelievably satisfying. “You know what, fuck off. Just get out, fuck off.” She stumbled away from the bed, dropping the bandages again as she flung herself at the door, sobbing. “And tell Negan he can fuck off too!” I yelled at her. It didn’t make me feel better.

 

Dark curls, freckled nose, big warm brown eyes. He sat across from me.

We stared at each other in the darkness. He sucked his thumb. I wished doing the same would grant me the same comfort.

It was strange this feeling. So empty. Like I had been eaten away without realising. And then I looked down and half my guts were on the ground behind me like a grotesque trail of breadcrumbs.

Dreams, I usually found, were blurred, surreal experiences. Senses are slow and dull. Now, I felt my tongue rasp dryly, licking my lips, my upper eyelashes brushing my lower ones as I blinked heavily. I reached slowly forward, dark curls passed through my fingers like air. Still, he sat there, staring at me. I listened to him breathe.

The Doc found me collapsed on the floor alone.

 

“I want to be there,” I stated calmly.

“I’m not sure you’re ready to leave the infirmary yet. Your condition is still very unstable. After your collapse-”

“I collapsed from grief.”

“I still cannot in any confidence sign you off as okay to leave.”

“Look, Doc,” I said, eyes flashing as I leant towards him over the desk standing between us. He gulped and I wanted to roll my eyes. “You can either write me off with a full bill of health and I leave, go to my boy’s funeral and get out of your hair, or you can try and keep me here, to your own detriment of course.”

“So what’s it gonna be?”

 

The funeral consisted of myself and a coffin. I refused all company.

It was in the garden, among the flowers, under a little tree. A week ago, Deano had picked me a whole bouquet of flowers from the vegetable patch. The gardeners had been furious. Negan had laughed. The coffin was small. He hadn’t needed a large one. I dug the hole myself, my fair skin burning under the hot sun. Every freckle I gained, in tribute. I glanced at the sky. There was a rainbow.

I hadn’t looked at him before I buried him. I wanted to remember him as he was. I wanted to be able to pretend it wasn’t him in there. I wanted to drop down into the hole and join him.

After I covered him up, I sat there, by the flowers. There was no gravestone to be had so I took one of the potted sunflowers I had brought back once for Deano and planted it where a gravestone would be. I imagined the dirt under my nails as blood instead. I lay back under the sun and over Deano’s grave and I closed my eyes.

I ignored the leather-clad figure watching from the railing.

 

“You’re gonna catch your death out here.”

I cracked open one eye and used it to glare at Paula. My head pounded sullenly.

“Sorry, poor taste.”

“Fuck you.” I laughed darkly despite myself.

A hand clasped my own. “Coming up?”

I let myself be pulled to my feet. Breath whooshed out of me and I struggled briefly before shrugging and walking next to Paula. One last look at the garden, the little tree, the sunflowers baring its face to the stars and the moon. The door, heavy and metal, closed with a bang behind me.

We walked in silence up to my room but when I opened the door, Paula followed me in. In her hand, a bottle of vodka which had previously gone unnoticed was grasped. She held it out to me.

“Drink to our sorrows?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do.”

And so we sat there, on the floor of my room, passing a bottle of vodka between us like the last teenagers awake at a party. I giggled weakly. Paula shot me a look.

“I haven’t had a _hic_ drink since high school,” I hiccuped.

“You are such a fucking prude.”

“Fuck off.”

Paula sipped before wiping her mouth with a sigh and throwing her head back. I snuck the bottle from her lax fingers. “When Alice died, I went away in myself for three days, drinking myself into oblivion.”  
“I just feel so… brittle,” I whispered into the mouth of the bottle, not looking up. “Like just one breath from someone standing too close and I’m gonna shatter. Every time I fall asleep, I just keep falling and falling...”

“There’s no pain like losing a child. It never leaves. It never gets better. You just get used to it being there.”

“I don’t want to get used to this.” But at the same time, I knew I would hold onto this grief for all I had. What else of Deano remained to me now?

I spent the next day vomiting my guts out.

 

I woke in my bed in the darkness, the taste of bile still on my tongue. A person was sat opposite and it wasn’t Paula.

“You took your time,” I said. He didn’t answer. I tried again. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Around.”

I snorted bitterly. “You’re a fucking dick.”

“What’s fucking new?”

At that, I outright laughed and immediately hated myself for it. I wiped my eyes and stared at the ceiling. “So much for Batman right? Can’t do the one fucking thing I had left to do. Batman always saves the day, right? Not this time.”

“S’not your fault.”

I snorted again. “It was though, wasn’t it. If I’d just done like you'd said, if I hadn’t gone to see him… Deano would still be here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” I conceded,”I don’t.”

I looked at him. Really, all he was was a silhouette. He could easily have been just another dream. But for some reason, I knew Negan was really there. I wondered if his eyes were rimmed with red like mine. Had he cried?

“Why didn’t you come to see me?”

He stayed silent for a moment. “I didn’t know what to say. I figured, how the fuck would my being there help you at all. So I stayed away.”

“I wanted you there.”

“I heard.”

“I buried him in the garden.”

“I saw.”

“If I die, I want to be there, next to him.”

Suddenly he was on the bed, over me. I could see his face clearly. Red eyes, wet cheeks. Anger. “You’re not going to fucking die.”

I couldn’t speak. Just as quick as he had gotten there, he moved back, still on the bed, but now kneeling by my side, rubbing one hand over his face. “Jesus fucking Christ, Dora. Don’t say that shit. Not now. Like you’re fucking giving a forecast…”

I pressed my face into the pillow for a moment. Dark curls danced in the corner of my vision. I purposefully kept my gaze on Negan. He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket. His hair was wild without gel, strewn like he’d been yanking at it. Lucille was nowhere to be seen. He looked naked. Vulnerable. He came to me without his armour. It was comforting.

“Did you feel like this?”  _When she died._

He looked at me. I stared back. I turned away first.

Eventually, he got up. I watched as he made his way to the door. When his hand was on the knob I heard myself call out.

“Please.”

Through the shadow and the exhaustion that was starting to glaze over my eyes, I could make out his hesitation.

“Please,” I whispered into the dark.

Shortly after, arms made their way around me and a damp, bearded face pressed into my neck. I don’t know who fell asleep first.

I dreamt of Deano in my arms, pressing kisses into his curls as we fell. I held him close as air rushed passed us, though no surface came to greet us. All I could do was hold him, press him into me even as my ribs broke open and all that I carried was laid bare.

I dreamt of Negan, scooping my heart and lungs up and pressing them into my hollow chest until I breathed and my heart beat returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. That was tough. I'm surprised I actually managed to finish that. Feeling a little emotionally exhausted but don't worry, will be back soon.


	15. Oh Daddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to the community, an execution, and a declaration of loyalty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Daddy by Fleetwood Mac

 

He was a china doll in death. Pale skin whitened unnaturally, a translucent porcelain. His freckles that we had counted one morning in front of the mirror, now like they were painted on. I reached out a hand, stroked a finger down his cheek. The paint smeared and my finger came away red. Blood dripping.                  

“Dora.”

I woke. Negan sat over me, hair dripping. A drop splashed against my cheek. I dabbed at the liquid, glanced at it on my skin. Just water.

“I made breakfast.”

I wasn’t hungry. I ate anyway.

We sat across from each other at my table, Negan’s eyes firmly on his food, my own I let focus on him. He still hadn’t put his leather jacket on. Instead, it lay, thrown carelessly over the unmade bed.

“You want coffee?”

I shook my head.

“Tea?”

“It’s not going to fucking make me feel better if that’s where you’re headed with this.”

“Fuck off, you’re drinking it.”

He poured me a cup. I lifted it, extended my arm out, and dropped it on the kitchen tiles. We both watched the china smash and the pale brown liquid pour out. He barked a humourless laugh. “I’m not gonna be the one to clean that shit up, so go right ahead sugar tits.” He then proceeded to swear, seeing the blood mixing with the liquid.

I didn’t pay much attention as Negan carried me to the bathroom and cleaned the cuts on my foot. I let him wash me, uncaring of my own nakedness. Despite all the pain, the grief, I still managed to tremble slightly under his hands. I closed my eyes as he ran calloused fingers through my hair, knowing that they had taken out Deano’s braids while I was in the infirmary.  All Negan was washing away were any remnants of his touch. Through it all, he was gentle, more careful even than the last time he had bathed me, barely touching my foot as he attempted to pat it dry. He bandaged it carefully before taking a look at the back of my head, tutting, and bandaging that too. I ignored him, even as he dressed me and stroked the hair back from my face, staring deep into my eyes.

When he stood to leave, I called him to stop. “Where are you going?”

“On a run.”

“To the community…”

“Yeah.”

I met his eyes. “To do what?”

“A demonstration.”

“What kind of demonstration?”

“An execution.”

My breath stopped, a scratch on a CD, and then I regained myself. “The prisoner?”

Negan nodded. “He woke up a day before you.”

“I want to come.”

Negan stared at me before nodding. He helped me put on my shoes.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart.

  
  
  


It was lunchtime when we pulled up. My nerves felt alive with electricity. I hadn’t kept still the entire drive there. The tension was palpable in the air; an awareness, a sense of foreboding. Negan helped me out of the RV, lifting me gently to the ground, the tenderness so completely at odds with the menace he was exuding to everyone else. As far as I knew, the community was unaware of their man’s murder. They were about to be made aware.

People began to gather as soon as they saw this wasn’t a normal visit. The Saviours stood still in front of our vehicles, making no move to start the collection. Whispers rose and the community members assembled shuffled cautiously. I watched as Cyndie and her grandmother pushed themselves to the front, Natania glaring at me in suspicion.

The prisoner was retrieved from a white van and thrown to the ground by two Saviours I didn’t recognise. Negan moved away from me, Lucille lazy in his hand, his prowl smooth and effortless. When the man began to push himself up onto his hands and knees, Negan swiftly kicked him, chasing him across the dirt into the middle of clearing created by horrified onlookers.

“Good morning, everybody! Good fucking god, it has been too fucking long,” Negan laughed, a wolf smiling at sheep.

“You may be wondering why I have decided to bring this piece of shit back to you. Is Negan being merciful? No, I’m not here to reunite a wayward flock. I’m here to dish out some punishment.” His face was dark with humour and he swayed in his movement. “The permanent kind.”

“One of you,” Lucille swung around to point, one by one, to each man and woman, “has committed the ultimate… transgression.”

Negan swung Lucille down, stopping before the man’s skull, instead, pressing his spine down into the earth. Everyone in the clearing seemed to have stopped breathing. Meanwhile, I was waiting with bated breath.

“Your man here is a child-killer. On his fucking hands is the blood of a three-year-old boy. An unprovoked, horrifying crime. My people demanded justice and so justice is going to be fucking served. And a demonstration of what happens to those who cross me.”

“Dora.”

My eyes flickered up to meet Negan’s. He nodded and lifted Lucille from the man’s back, before stepping away. He was allowing me my justice. Well, I would take my pound of flesh and then some.

I took a step towards the man. I tilted my head contemplatively. What first?

“Dora.”

Stopping, but not turning, I gritted my teeth. Negan came to stand next to me. In his hand was an mp3 player with pink headphones. I took it carefully. Questions bubbled to my lips.

“Why?” I settled on asking.

“To make it easier,” he said in an unaffected tone of voice, but his eyes flashed and I knew this was a test. He nodded at the man, now crouched over his knees, too weak to hold himself fully upright.

“I don’t have my knife.”

Lucille moved into my field of vision. It took me a few moments to realise he was handing her to me. My fingers were hesitant, then strong and still as I grasped her. I looked back at him quickly, tucking the headphones into my ears before walking in front of the man on the ground.

_Oh, daddy, you know you make me cry._

The man looked up, shaking but still sneering. He looked starved and beaten from since I’d seen him last. Like Negan had taken his own pound of flesh, leaving the rest for me. Dark satisfaction curled inside me.

_How can you love me? I don’t understand why._

I lifted Lucille high over my head. I thought I could feel perhaps something of what Negan felt. Phantom hands over mine. A woman’s. A child’s.

_Oh, daddy. If I could make you see._

I licked my lips, salt heady in my mouth as blood pounded in my ears.

_If there’s been a fool around here, it’s got to be me._

The bat swung down with all the strength and resolve of a guillotine. The feeling of skull-shattering under the brute force that I wielded through Lucille had me transfixed. Muted under the sound of the music and my own blood pumping, I vaguely heard sobbing. Was it mine? Was the wetness on my face tears, blood or both?

_Yes, it’s got to be me._

Eventually, hands reached me, sliding from my heaving shoulders, down my arms to my wrists, which they encircled. Lucille was pulled from my desperate grasp, sliding through blood-coated fingers. Accusing eyes glared at me through tears on all sides. At the forefront, Cyndie, face pale with horror. Her little brother was not in sight, nor was her mother. Hand on her shoulder was her grandmother, the apparent matriarch. Where Cyndie’s face was betrayal and anguish, the grandmother’s was hate. Not a furious rage, but a cold anger. One that would not melt.

Someone, I assumed Negan, was talking and people were moving. I was moving, leaning heavily on Negan’s chest like I could take refuge there. We got to the RV and he helped me back up, propping Lucille next to me. From one of her barbs, a tangled clump of matted hair hung, red with blood. Before Negan could shut the door, Cyndie was there, a mess of tears and snot, her grandmother stone-faced and glaring behind her. The more Cyndie babbled the less I heard, or wanted to hear, up until the point where the crying child became too much and Cyndie was banished by Negan, shoved away like a begging dog.

Negan shut the door, before joining me, sliding into the driver’s seat.

I kept staring at my hands, even as we drove. Mile after mile, the red didn’t leave them. Blood from the man had stained my hands and the sight was memorizing. I felt like Lady Macbeth. Unsex me here, I wanted to scream. Take all this pain. Just leave me with my vengeance. Endless red seeping into the lines on my palms. Something near my stomach began to ache.

I didn’t notice when we stopped moving, the other cars passing us. I hardly registered Negan gently pulling the pink earbuds from my ears, the music leaving me. My hands were pulled from where I had twisted them in my lap and I gasped as water flowed over the red, dulling it, washing it away.

_Why are you right when I’m so wrong?_

The water stopped and suddenly lips were on my hands, around my fingers. A hot, wet tongue circling, sucking off any remaining blood, teasing the creases, the gaps.

_I’m so weak but you’re so strong._

Brown eyes met brown, and two hands guided my own palms up as coarse bristles rasped across them. We moved together, Negan pulling, me pushing forward until I was straddling his lap.

_Everything you do is just alright._

Mouth open and panting against Negan’s, I blinked, carding wet fingers through his hair, before pressing my face into his neck and breathing deep.

“The leader, Natania, she’s organising something. They’re hoarding weapons.”

Negan pulled back and ran assessing eyes over me. He thoughtfully paused, his own hands stroking up my neck, and over my face. I sucked in a grating breath and pressed my forehead against his own, speaking softly, “I am Negan.”

He smiled, as soft as I’d ever seen it, and leaned forward to brush a whisper of a kiss on my lips. Closing my eyes, I fell into his touch.

_And I can’t walk away from you baby if I tried._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long wait for an update, sorry. And I'm giving you the shortest chapter yet! I'll try to make it up by getting started on the next chapter immediately.


	16. Devil Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina has something to tell Dora. Dora is mean. Weird intense stuff between Dora and Negan. Shit goes down at the community.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Devil Inside - INXS

 

It was all business as soon as we got back to Sanctuary. It was reminiscent of when I lived by the ocean and the tsunami warning went off. A mass and sudden movement. Within minutes, Negan was secluded away in the ‘War Room’. I had snorted at that when I heard him say it, Dr. Strangelove on the tip of my tongue. In there with him was Simon, Paula, Arat, Dwight and two others I didn’t recognise. Quite suddenly I was at a loss. Negan was busy and I had no business intruding in his demonstration of military mobilisation, nor any desire to. A longing hit me for Samson. My oldest companion, loyal to a fault. Banished beyond my reach. Even before I’d been given my job with Saviours, I’d never had nothing to do. I blinked twice. Keep walking.

Apparently, I was allowed to remain in my room, despite... being no longer qualified. Of course, I avoided it at all costs. It was considerably colder at night and far too large without two smaller bodies radiating heat and taking up space.

I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, throwing myself down on the bed.

A knock on the door, soft, barely there.

I ignored it. Whoever it was could fuck off right now.

 _“Dora? Are you- Can I talk to you please?”_ Tina’s soft voice. Bugger.

“What?” I demanded, throwing the door open. Tina recoiled, flinching from the fury in my voice and I almost felt bad. Observations like her red-ringed eyes, trembling lips were simultaneously noticed and discarded as irrelevant. “What can you possibly want?”

She gaped before sniffling, rubbing at the wet pinkness of her cheeks. “I- I'm sorry. I just thought…”

“Thought what?”

“I know we haven’t known each other long, but I can’t, _I can’t_ talk to Sherry about this.” She swallowed painfully, seemingly resolving herself. “I’m diabetic, and I’m almost out of insulin and don’t have enough points for more. Negan… Negan’s offered to- to marry me.”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” she rushed to assure me. “I just, I guess I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

I nodded slowly. “You wanted to know what I thought?”

She looked so relieved, giving me a wobbly smile. “Yes.”

I nodded again, looking down and taking a breath, before smoothing my face. “I think you should fuck off.”

Aghast, shocked, horrified. “I- what?”

“Do you honestly think I could give a flying shit about your little problems right now?” I barrelled on when her silence prevailed. “My baby has _just died_ and you think I care whether the man who has spent the last few weeks alternating between beating me up and sexually harassing me puts a ring on you before you suck his dick? I don’t even know you and I sure as hell don’t put any significance on where Negan sticks his cock as long as it’s not in me so _fuck off._ ”

And I slammed the door in her face.

  
  


It was hours later when the door opened, though the lights stayed off.

I lay back on the pillows, secure in the darkness. I couldn’t see him clearly but I’d been around Negan enough to recognise him solely by sheer presence. His energy felt different now. Tangy on the tongue.

“Here to warn me off scaring another one of your lady friends?”

“Come with me.”

We walked in silence, not speaking since Negan told me to get dressed and watched, unerringly attentive, as I did so, even as I tied the laces on my boots. He remained in his usual attire though it did not give off its usual effect. This was Negan as I hadn’t seen him before. Sub-zero, and completely lethal.

He led me to the armoury, quickly clearing the room as he picked out my body armour for me. The established distance and impersonality lessened as he strapped me in himself.

“Too tight?” he murmured, eyes flashing as he stepped into me, slipping long fingers between my vest and t-shirt.

I shook my head, mute, before reaching up. He stilled as I let my fingers rest at his collar. I hadn’t been lying to Tina, not really. I didn’t care if Negan married her. I was, however, beginning to realise whatever it was going on between myself and Negan was a hell of a lot more complicated than a heavy-handed harasser and a girl suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Moving slowly, I tugged the heavy leather off his shoulders before imitating his own previous motions and fitting him with his own armour, gently adjusting it as necessary. By the time we were finished, my head felt heavy with the proximity, remembering the morning in his bed when he had pressed every inch of that long firm body into mine. Lucille had interrupted us there and I could feel her now, though I felt I understood better now. What with the curly dark hair flickering in and out of the corner of my sight and small fingers pressing into the calf of my jeans.

“So what’s the plan, bossman?”

He knelt to strap my bowie knife to my thigh. I tried to pretend I wasn’t holding my breath.

He smirked knowingly and I barely refrained from whacking his head.

“Confrontation.” He pulled the strap tight. “They have the option to surrender those guilty and escape further punishment.”

“And if they don’t?”

Fingers strayed, sliding along my inseam.

“Consequence.”

His hand jumped to the waistband of my jeans, yanking me in as he pushed himself up my body. He stayed hunched enough that I breathed in the air he breathed out.

“You’re not leaving my side. Are we clear?”

I swallowed, letting my nose brush his.

“Yeah, Negan. Clear.”

  
  


While I had always been aware of the ship-shape structure Negan expected and demanded of the Sanctuary, I was left in awe of the force he had summoned after less than a 12 hours of planning. Cars lined up, filled with Saviours ready to be deployed. I had faced thirty of them before. There had to be at least 50 mean and women here armed to the teeth and all bloodthirsty in the wake of Negan’s call for arms.

For the first time, Negan and I weren’t alone in the RV. He seemed to have gathered all of his lieutenants to convene before arrival, crowded around the table at the back. Negan stood like a preacher before his congregation, voice slowing, deepening, conveying an important message, before rising with choreographed movements in urgency.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even as I set about delegating ammo from my position in shotgun. Paula rolled her eyes when she caught me at it.

I could feel myself being along too. I had only watched Negan in the act before, as though behind glass, scoffing at his mindless flock of sheep that turned into wolves at any hint of blood. He was just magnetic, massive. A force of nature.

I was so excited to see the devastation he wrought.

  
  


“You may be wondering why we are back so soon. Well, I can tell you right now, it’s not for the fucking company.”

Arriving, the Saviours had dragged all residents out of their homes pulling them into the large clearing where they were then surrounded. I stood just behind Negan, Simon and Arat at his shoulders and Paula by mine. I kept my eyes on Natania. If I hadn’t been dragged into Negan’s path perhaps I would have ended up at her side. She met my eyes, hard and evaluating. But I belonged to Negan now, I was Negan.

I rocked forward, barely brushing against the back of Negan’s jacket.

“We are here today because some of you have been very naughty.” He chuckled low. “Some of you have been stealing my stuff, my stuff! Not only have you been stealing and hiding my stuff, you have been stealing and hiding weapons. Now is it just me, or does that seem dodgy as fuck.”

Negan paused, smiling wide. “I mean, what reason could you guys possibly have for stealing guns from me. Unless you’re thinking of using them?”

“Now I’m a reasonable guy. We’ve had a couple of shit days, we shouldn’t let that define our whole relationship! You hand over the group behind this and I’ll consider this over and done with.”

Eyes shifted restlessly among the group, all of them brushing over Natania at least once. Negan tutted, shaking his heading.

“You really gonna take the fall for a bunch of cowards. I mean, by all means, continue. I actually fucking enjoy this part. My baby girl is fucking thirsty, and right now, she’s hot for just about anyone of you.”

“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” The girl, Cyndie, cried out before a hand was slapped over her mouth. Negan looked like a cat that caught the canary.

“No, no, no. Let her talk, I wanna hear what everyone’s got to say. Come here, darling. That’s it, Arat.”

Arat strode forward, yanking the girl from her mother’s arms. There was a movement to pull her back but two Saviours were there quickly to discourage that. Negan grabbed the girl as soon as she was within reach, pulling her close and under his arm like they were best friends.

“Now, sweetheart, I want you to repeat what you just said.”

The girl was sobbing and shaking like a leaf. “Please, leave us alone.”

“I like your manners, darling, but that is a no can fucking do.” He dropped his arm from her shoulders to grab her from the back of the neck instead, shaking her and turning to address his audience. “You guys just aren’t getting the memo, are you? I own you! You belong to me! Your shit belongs to me! And the fact that you guys keep acting like that shit isn’t your life now is _really_ starting to piss me off.”

Dwight handed him a pistol which he pressed to Cyndie’s skull.

_BANG!_

Negan staggered backwards into me and we both fell. Paula quickly moved to cover us as I pushed myself out from under Negan.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I am really starting to hate these guys,” Negan swore, a hand pressed to his neck where the bullet grazed him.

“You and me both,” I griped, getting my arms under his armpits and yanking him back out of the mayhem that had descended.

“Fuck, that bastard got my bandana!”

I rolled my eyes, panting as I pulled him up to lean on me. “Like you don’t have ten more, pressed and ironed in your drawer.”

“Not the point, sugar tits.”

“Here, press this to it.”

I turned away as another Saviour came over to tend to him. Simon and Paula had five men pressed into the dirt, their weapons thrown to the side. Cyndie had disappeared somewhere into the crowd. A growl came from behind me and Negan pushed past me, a haphazard bandage around his neck.

“Search the settlement, I want every weapon you can find!”

He walked over to the man Simon gestured to, stared down at him for a moment, before stomping on his hand. The man screamed as the bones crunched.

“Try that again, I’ll stomp on your dick,” he spat down at him. “Dora.”

I moved closer, pointing to the treeline. “Around ten metres behind the gardens, under a tarp.”

Dwight hurried off.

“Alright, everyone on their knees now!”

The people hurried to comply, many openly crying. Five Saviours came back reporting hidden food or weapons or medicine. Dwight returned with an armful of semi-automatics.

“Okay, I’ve had enough. I gave you your chance and you decided not to fucking take it. Round ‘em up!”

Saviours began to move in unison as if waiting for the call. They strode through the kneeling population grabbing every male and dragging them into a line with the five men pressed into the dirt. Cyndie’s brother was pulled from the group, his mother screaming his name.

Negan shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to be merciful.”

I spun around, moving quickly to the RV.  The kid starting crying for his mother. Noise swelled up to the canopy. I ripped open the door, trying to block it out.

The guns went off. I shut the door on the screams.

_This is my revenge. This belongs to me._

I felt like a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! With a bang. More like a whole lot of bangs. Will try to keep on it from here on out. More dark and intense romance on the way.


End file.
